Examining Behavioural Retrieval

The challenge of software reuse is to record software development knowledge in such a way that it is readily stored digitally and easily retrieved, understood and used by other software engineers. Hence at the highest level, the process of retrieval from a repository is to take a description of a problem, and search for stored knowledge which may help to solve the described problem. The purpose of component retrieval is therefore concerned with nding component behaviours which solve a problem described by a query. Most proposed component retrieval schemes simulate this search for desired behaviour, either by using text-based, vocabulary clas-siication, structural matching or speciication matching techniques. Of course, most retrieval schemes also consider contextual aspects, such as resource usage, eeciency and internal representation. A theoretical deenition of behavioural retrieval is required to describe the ideal (modulo contextual aspects) retrieval scheme, despite its probable ineeciency in practice. In this paper a theoretical deenition of behavioural retrieval is outlined, showing that useful, exploitable structure does exist in behaviour. Workshop Goals: extending behavioural theory to reuse-in-the-large, networking