Software engineers need relevant and up-to-date architectural knowledge (AK), in order to make well-founded design decisions. However, finding such AK is quite challenging. One pragmatic approach is to search for AK on the web using traditional search engines (e.g. Google); this is common practice among software engineers. Still, we know very little about what AK is retrieved, from where, and how useful it is. In this paper, we conduct an empirical study with 53 software engineers, who used Google to make design decisions using the Attribute-Driven-Design method. Based on how the subjects assessed the nature and relevance of the retrieved results, we determined how effective web search engines are to find relevant architectural information. Moreover, we identified the different sources of AK on the web and their associated AK concepts.
翻译:软件工程师需要相关和最新的建筑知识(AK),以便做出有充分依据的设计决定。然而,找到这种AK是相当具有挑战性的。一个务实的方法是使用传统的搜索引擎(例如谷歌)在网上搜索AK;这是软件工程师的常见做法。然而,我们对于AK从何处检索到什么、从何处检索到什么以及它有多大用处知之甚少。在这份文件中,我们与53名软件工程师进行了实证研究,这些工程师利用Google使用属性驱动设计方法作出设计决定。根据主题如何评估检索结果的性质和相关性,我们决定了网络搜索引擎如何有效地找到相关的建筑信息。此外,我们还确定了网上AK的不同来源及其相关的AK概念。