Experiences in using reverse engineering tools

A course on reverse engineering (tools and practice) was given in the spring term 2000 at the Tampere University of Technology (Software Systems Lab). More information about the course can be found here (in Finnish, sorry).

As an assignment the students analyzed xfig 3.2.1 program (about 30 000 LOC). The assignment was based on the structured demo material designed by Susan Sims (University of Toronto) and Peggy Storey (University of Victoria). The students used the following tools:

• Imagix4D,
• Rigi,
• PBS, and
• TkSee
• Rational Rose (different assignment)

Besides the tasks defined in the structured demo material, the students were supposed to analyze the tools by answering the following questions:

• What were the advantages and disadvantages of the tool ?
• How easy was it to learn / install the tool ?
• Do you have suggestions for new features / improvements for the tool ?
• What difficulties did you encounter with your tool ? Did it crash ? Any other surprises ?
• How long did it take you to read the source code into your tool ?
• How long did you spend on the tasks ?
• Other comments ?

To support the tool analysis, the students were given a scoring questionnaire to collect data about the xfig structured demonstration (available at http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~simsuz/bake-off/scoring.html). Answering the questionnaire was not mandatory.

This page will contain the conclusions of the assignment and summary reports provided by the students (in English). Unfortunately, we cannot provide reports about TkSee and PBS. The students were not able to use these tools to finish their assignment, the main barrier being the lack of updated documentation (esp. usage instructions).

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Reports
• Imagix4D
• Rigi
• PBS
• TkSee
• Rational Rose
• Lessons learnt

Many thanks to all tool providers for their collaboration and help !
Any comments and questions concerning this assignment are welcome.

Tarja Systä (email).