Perspective and perception on software ageing: The empirical study

Abstract

The notion of software ageing was introduced about twenty years ago. Since then the knowledge and idea of it were increasingly accepted by the academia and researchers. Software ageing is a phenomenon when the software is degraded in its quality, user's satisfaction and dynamic environment adaptation. In human being, ageing is inevitable process, but with an understanding of the causes, it way helps to delay the ageing process. But unlike human ageing, software ageing can be delayed by identifying factors that influence and accelerate the ageing process. In this study software ageing is defined as the phenomenon when the software drops its quality values accepted by the users and environment. This paper presents the empirical study done to investigate the issues of software ageing among software practitioners in Malaysia. The findings show that software ageing factors can be classified into four main classifications: functional, human, environment and product profile.