摘要 |
The present invention relates to a method, a system and a computer program product for automatically identifying options in a project that includes existing components. The method includes the steps of generating representations of existing components (910), storing the representations for retrieval (920), formulating one or more decision problem/s or decision support issue/s arising in the project as a planning problem using one or more of the representations (930) and solving the planning problem using automated reasoning techniques to identify options relating to the project (940). Preferably, formulation of the project as a planning problem includes defining the input data specification of the project as the initial state of the planning problem, defining the functionality requirement of the project as the goal state of the planning problem and defining one or more of the existing components as actions of the planning problem. Each action has one or more precondition/s corresponding to input/s of a component and each action has one or more effect/s corresponding to output/s of a component. The solution to the planning problem can include the identification of existing components for reuse, the identification of existing components to be upgraded and/or the specification of new components to be developed. Embodiments of the invention are particularly applicable to the development and maintenance of software projects/programs.
|