Author	Hausi A. Müller, Kenny Wong, Scott R. Tilley.
Title	Understanding Software Systems Using Reverse Engineering Technology
Publication	Understanding software systems using reverse engineering technology. The 62nd Congress of L'Association Canadienne Francaise pour l'Avancement des Sciences Proceedings (ACFAS 1994)
Abstract	Software engineering research has focused primarily on software construction, neglecting software maintenance and evolution. Observed is a shift in research from synthesis to analysis. The process of reverse engineering is introduced as an aid in program understanding. This process is concerned with the analysis of existing software systems to make them more understandable for maintenance, reengineering, and evolution purposes. Presented is reverse engineering technology developed as part of the Rigi project. The Rigi approach involves the identification of software artifacts in the subject system and the aggregation of these artifacts to form more abstract system representations. Early industrial experience has shown that software engineers using Rigi can quickly build mental models from the discovered abstractions that are compatible with the mental models formed by the maintainers of the underlying software.
Keywords	Legacy software, program understanding, reverse engineering, software engineering education, software evolution, structural redocumentation.

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