Talk:Software maintenance

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Software: Computing High‑importance

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Software maintenance is currently a Computing and engineering good article nominee. Nominated by Buidhe paid (talk) at 03:20, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

An editor has indicated a willingness to review the article in accordance with the good article criteria. Further reviews are welcome from any editor who has not contributed significantly to this article (or nominated it), and can be added to the review page, but the decision whether or not to list the article as a good article should be left to the first reviewer.

Short description: Modification of a software product after delivery

What about techniques?[edit]

Hello all, I included (for now) a list of (one) techniques for software maintenance. In the future if some good souls were to add to the list, perhaps the list of techniques could be broken off into its own page, since the current page treats this subject (as it should) on more of a top-level. A couple more can likely be gleaned from the latest edition of Page-Jones, and maybe a few more from the Best Practices section of the book Rapid Development by Steve McConnell, and maybe from his other book Code Complete. I urge caution, since these practices could more properly fall into the program coding stage, or earlier stages. Vonkje 18:38, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think Pigosk should be spelled with an i as in "Pigoski". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.193.128.85 (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request[edit]

Please replace the content of the article with User:Buidhe paid/Software maintenace. Reason: rewrite based on better sources, add sections about the development -> maintenance -> obsolescence cycle, change cycles, workforce, etc. The current article is mostly unsourced. Buidhe paid (talk) 01:52, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I plan a GAN after this edit request: [1] Buidhe paid (talk) 03:07, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have implemented this, everything is looking good from a cursory overview. Thank you for your work as always. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki99 summary[edit]

Summary of changes as a result of the Wiki99 project (before, after, diff):

Complete rewrite of the article based on scholarly sources
Added sections about:
- The process of how software goes from release to different cycles of maintenance and obsolescence
- How software is changed during maintenance
- Workforce
- Research
Added information about maintenance of free and open source software

For other editors to consider doing in the future:

Help me get the article to GA status
Potentially expand with more content, if more sources can be found
Consider a merge with software evolution, since the difference is inconsistently defined, blurry, and many sources are about "software maintenance and evolution"

Buidhe paid (talk) 06:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Open source software workforce[edit]

I am also part of the Wiki99 project developing this article. Buidhe above did a major rewrite, and I think it looks great. The overall Wiki99 project has a theme of open source software. Buidhe did not readily identify this theme in the wiki literature review to develop this article, so I asked some academic colleagues to suggest a paper. Here is one that I like.

I would like to include content about maintaining open source software. These researchers interviewed people who maintain this kind of content.

Geiger, R. Stuart; Howard, Dorothy; Irani, Lilly (13 April 2021). "The Labor of Maintaining and Scaling Free and Open-Source Software Projects". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 5 (CSCW1): 1–28. doi:10.1145/3449249.

Here is my own summary of the paper:

The team interviewed 37 developers for an average of an hour each
They attempted to recruit diversity in the interviewee pool, both in terms of demographics of the developer and the class of F/OSS project they maintained
Many of the interviewees reported that the project they maintained depended on volunteer labor
Differences between maintaining open versus closed software include the culture of workers getting paid by paying customers versus volunteer developers in a socio-technical system for non-paying users
Developing F/OSS requires significant socializing, trust, giving thanks, and community membership, including in volunteer contexts
Recognition can lead to F/OSS projects getting more support; lack of recognition even for popular projects can mean less support
Project coordination is a challenge when there are no staff for key elements of an ecosystem

I am posting this here on the talk page because I am paid in this project as described at Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Virginia/2023 Wiki99 for open source software, so I am editing more slowly with more discussion than I do with other projects. For now, I am just floating this additional perspective for software outside commercial corporate development. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:45, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although this is an interesting study, I'm not sure about WP:DUE. I've tried to avoid citing primary sources, in part because of concerns about replication and generalizability. Additionally, I did add a couple sentences about FOSS projects that are already in the article. Buidhe paid (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Software maintenance/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Buidhe paid (talk · contribs) 03:20, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Sohom Datta (talk · contribs) 03:46, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to tackle this over this weekend. sohom@enwiki 03:46, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that I had forgotten about this, I'll try to get to it this week. (Feel free to ping me liberally if I don't) Sohom (talk) 03:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I've been quite busy too! Buidhe paid (talk) 00:44, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Buidhe paid I've gone through and raised a few concerns :) Sohom (talk) 00:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Review[edit]

On reading through the article, one thing in particular jumps out to me. It feels like article sort of assumes that the waterfall model is the default (and only) model used in software development. The article very briefly mentions the fact that software is often delivered in a incomplete state nowadays but doesn't address the elephant in the room i.e. the fact that a lot of the software development that happens today happens in a iterative manner utilizing frameworks like the agile software development and often the maintainence phase is done alongside the rest of the phases.
- My understanding is that waterfall versus agile methodology is more relevant to the pre-delivery software development, rather than the scope of this artile that is about post-delivery changes driven by change requests rather than requirements. Given that the definition for software maintenance is "the modification of a software product after delivery", agile or FOSS products that are delivered early and undergo refinement after delivery could also count as maintenance. However, it does not tend to be called maintenance in sources, making it harder to cover. Also, "the agile software development lifecycle lacks a dedicated maintenance plan" 2024.
The article should probably give some context on where/how the offshoring/outsourcing happens. Currently, the article has a slight bit of a globalization issue, as it mentions offshoring and outsourcing the maintainance of software to other countries without any context of which countries do it when I'm pretty sure it tends to be mostly the anglosphere.
that maintenance is not be practical or economical
- Done
The section Alternatives to maintenance should probably be prosified with context on when those list options are chosen.