++++++++++++++++++ FME2001: - Review reports for paper 08 +++++++++++++++++++++ - Dear author(s) : this file was extracted automatically from a very large - mailbox. In case you find any problem concerning mail encodings (or any - other kind of anomaly disturbing your understanding of the reviews) please - email any of the PC cochairs (pamela@research.att.com,jno@di.uminho.pt). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 08 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: The Development of a Computer Application that Identifies Reusable Components through Formal Specifications AUTHOR(S): Francisco Moreira Couto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): This paper describes the first phase of the development of a tool that will identify reusable components from an algebraic specification. However, the first phase does not deal with reusable components or their identification at all. The paper only discusses the problem of translating from an algebraic specification to a "categorical representation". 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 1 Please comment your rating: The paper is filled with grammatical errors, e.g. "It was been made a study of such results, but is wasn't possible to found all of them until now." and does not offer a rationale for why the categorical representation is necessary beyond the following sentence "We selected category theory in the components retrieval because category theory is a powerful language independent, mathematical framework and can be efficiently implemented in matching algorithms". So it is a paper that provides some algorithms for translating from an algebraic specification to a categorical representation without any good reason for doing so. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: The algorithms are new 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: This is where the paper is most weak. The overall goal of developing a software reuse database is worthwhile, but the authors are far from developing such a system. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: There is little rationale for the work. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: technical quality is ok, but the grammer is horrible. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: AT this point the work is purely theoretical. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: The writing is very poor. There are literally dozens of sentences with grammer errors. Here is an example: "During the developing of this project it'll be revised the algorithms presented in the paper [Cre98], which determine if two categorical representations match one with each other." 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: no Are the figures and length acceptable?: Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: The paper is appropriate for a university technical report at this point in the project. A broader audience will be interested once significant progress has been made towards a tool that stores/retrieves reusable components. Also please have someone edit your paper prior to submission. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 08 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: The Development of a Computer Application that Identifies Reusable Components through Formal Specifications AUTHOR(S): Francisco Moreira Couto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper presents a formal method together with a computer application which enables automatic software reuse. The formal method is founded in category theory. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: The project described in the paper looks interesting. I don't know about similar projects in which formal methods are used in the field of software reuse, and which, at the same time are implemented. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 3 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: As I am not an expert on software reuse, I can not say something about the originality of this work when related to reuse. As far as formal methods concerned, the idea seems nice: automate the reuse process such that reusable components are identified automatically by matching mechanisms. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: see 5. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Here is a real problem: there are no references to existing literature addressing the same kind of problems. Another problem of the paper is that the claim is not substantiated. The author sketches an algorithm with which algebraic pre-/postcondition specifications can be translated to categories, but there are no formal results that justify the translation. One of the greatest shortcomings of the paper is that it is not explained how the categorical translation is used. Nor is it clear why category theory is used in the first place. Finally, there are no experimental results mentioned in the paper. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: The translation rests on normal forms (Conjunctive Normal Forms in clausal form) which belong to a freshman's course on logic. The theory is restricted to those cases where quantifiers are applied to single predicates. The reason for this is not clear to me (the reason provided by the author is not correct). Nor is it clear why the theory is restricted to monadic logic (with unary predicates). In short, the choices made with respect to the implementation are not well motivated, and the results on which the translation is based are trivial. As I stated before (see 7.) there are no formal results about the translation. As a matter of fact, the paper does not contain formal results at all. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: see above. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Very poor writing. To my opinion the paper should be completely rewritten before acceptance. There should be a proper introduction in which the approach is motivated and related to existing literature. Next, the translation should be informally explained. A leading example could do the job. Trivial results should be dropped from the text. The algorithm could be presented in a more condensed way. The algorithm should be applied to the leading example. There should be some discussion about the formal relation between the original specification and the obtained categorical translation. The English should be checked afterwards. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Are the figures and length acceptable?: yes Are the references correct?: yes 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 08 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: The Development of a Computer Application that Identifies Reusable Components through Formal Specifications AUTHOR(S): Francisco Moreira Couto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper describes a translation of a certain type of algebraic specifications into a categorical representation. This translation has been implemented by a computer application. For the implementation it was necessary to make some extensions to existing algorithms found in the literature ([Cre98], [Lai76]). 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: the promise in the title of the paper is not kept, since only the translation of algebraic specifications into their categorical representation is elaborated on, but not the development of matching algorithms which is essential for the retrievement of reusable components. Hence the essential and interesting part is missing. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 4 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: the novelty is the implementation of the translation algorithms by Crespo and Laita by a computer application, which made some extensions to the original algorithms necessary. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: the goal is the implementation of a computer application consisting of the translator and a matching component, which serves to identify reusable components. The paper, however, only covers the translator, which does not seem a worthwile goal in itself to be presented in the conference. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: it is not well motivated and justified why the approach is a solution to the problem of software reuse: First of all, the algebraic specifications used in the paper are of a very restricted nature and hence an application to real examples seems far away. Secondly, the paper contains no justication for the categorical approach chosen. And thirdly, the interesting part of matching categorical representations is left out almost completely. In the paper it is only said that the matching component will be based on a revised version of the algorithms of Crespo - but this seems to be future work. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: the referee did not find technical errors. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: the referee is not convinced that the computer application under development will be applicable to real life examples. First of all, the syntax of algebraic specifications is very restricted (see also 12). Moreover,so far little experience with the computer application has been gained, since it has only been applied to two very small examples: the example presented in chapter 5 and the example of a simple switch. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: The English needs some revision: the referee found a number of grammatical errors. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: no Are the figures and length acceptable?: yes Are the references correct?: some more references should be included (see 12 below) 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: Algebraic Specifications: Here the referee was rather astonished that terms are only built from constants and variables, and that no constructor operations are considered. Hence with every sort a set of constants have to be associated which define the possible values of this sort. Is this not rather cumbersome ? And how can predefined types be incorporated, like for instance the natural numbers ? References: The topics "Software Reuse" and "Specification Matching" are only covered by a single reference (which is the work by Crespo). What is the reason for that? The referee would like to point you to some further references on these topics: M. Wirsing: Algebraic description of reusable software components. In: E. Milgrom, P. Wodon (eds.) Proc. COMPEURO'88. IEEE Computer Society, 834, Computer Society Press, 300 - 312 M.C. Gaudel, Th. Moineau: A theory of software reusability. In H. Ganzinger (ed.) Proc. ESOP'88. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 300, 115-130, 1988. A.M. Zaremski, J.M. Wing: Signature Matching: A Key to Reuse. Technical report CMU-CS-93-151, Carnegie Mellon University, 1993. P. S. Chen, R. Hennicker, M. Jarke: On the retrieval of reusable software components. Advances in Software Reuse. Selected Papers from the Second International Workshop on Software Reusability. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, California, Order Number 3130, 99-108, 1993. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 08 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: The Development of a Computer Application that Identifies Reusable Components through Formal Specifications AUTHOR(S): Francisco Moreira Couto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): developing and implementing a categorical representation of algenraic specifications so as to identify reusable components from the categorical representations. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: Work not fully developed to show general applicability. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 4 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: implementation of translation to categorical representation 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: The first goal. to convert from algebraic specifications to category theory, is not completely original. The second goal, to identify reusable components from the categorical representations, is very worthwhile. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Not well for the second goal, it is only alluded to. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: yes 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: as above, the applicabilty (reuse) is alluded to but not expounded clearly. Most of the work still appears to be needed to be done here. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: English is reasonable except in section 6 which needs careful revision. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: no Are the figures and length acceptable?: yes Are the references correct?: yes 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: the abstract is misleading as to the balance of the paper. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++