Learning the semantic similarity of reusable software components

Properly structured software libraries are crucial for the success of software reuse. Specifically, the structure of the software library ought to reflect the functional similarity of the stored software components in order to facilitate the retrieval process. We propose the application of artificial neural network technology to achieve such a structured library. In more detail, we utilize an artificial neural network adhering to the unsupervised learning paradigm. The distinctive feature of this very model is to make the semantic relationship between the stored software components geographically explicit. Thus, the actual user of the software library gets a notion of the semantic relationship between the components in terms of their geographical closeness.