Sharing a broad knowledge of an entire software
How would you present DECODER?
DECODER is an ambitious project with the goal of making large software development process easier. It offers the tools to unify all component artefacts, from code to documentation, in a single database with relevant relations between them. One of the key ideas is to ensure that new developers can rapidly get a broad knowledge about the entire software, with up-to-date information. This is especially required for legacy software and for large software projects where there is a lack of documentation.
What is your role in DECODER?
I am mainly involved in two work packages, WP4 and WP5. The first one is focused on establishing links between code, requirements and documentation. Once established, these links should contribute to generate an implicit knowledge in order to understand large software quicker. Up to now, I have been working on gathering and parsing data required for training the model. The second work package is focused on designing a new methodology and a framework integrating developed tools into the software lifecycle. As a result, the code being developed using this process should be easier to maintain thanks to a better documentation and a higher quality.
What key innovation do you bring or help to develop?
A key innovation that DECODER brings is traceability between code, code comments and documentation. This is one of the main building blocks required to facilite the knowledge transfer and to keep documentation relevant as the software project evolves. To complement this goal, I will investigate ways to extract requirements from documentation using NLP libraries and the usability of obtained data. I am also extracting documentation by means of javadoc comments from source code represented as abstract syntax tree. In WP5, I will validate newly envisioned methodology on our own projects, providing useful insights for further refinement.
A word about yourself and your organization
I am a researcher working at Technikon, focused on embedded system security and software architecture. Technikon is an independent, engineering and research company located in Villach, Austria. We provide research and project management based services to high-tech companies across Europe.
Stefan Ilić holds a BSc and MSc degree Electrical Engineering – Computer Science and Information Technology from Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Banja Luka. During master studies, as part of EUROWEB+ student exchange, he studied at University of L’Aquila. He joined Technikon in July 2019 as IoT Security Researcher working on H2020 projects.