A Petri-Net Based Reflective Framework for the Evolution of Dynamic Systems

Nowadays, software evolution is a very hot topic. Many applications need to be updated or extended with new characteristics during their lifecycle. Software evolution is characterized by its huge cost and slow speed of implementation. Often, software evolution implies a redesign of the whole system, the development of new features and their integration in the existing and/or running systems (this last step often implies a complete rebuilding of the system). A good evolution is carried out through the evolution of the system design information and then propagating the evolution to the implementation. Petri Nets (PN), as a formalism for modeling and designing distributed/concurrent software systems, are not exempt from this issue. Several times a system modeled through Petri nets has to be updated and consequently also the model should be updated. Often, some kinds of evolution are foreseeable and could be hardcoded in the code or in the model, respectively. Embedding evolutionary steps...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: ENTCS
• Authors: Lorenzo Capra, Walter Cazzola
• Keywords: ENTCS 2006, Model, Petri Nets, Software Evolution