Framework evolution tool

Framework development is very expensive, not only because of the intrinsic difficulty related to capturing the domain knowledge, but also because of the lack of appropriate methods and techniques to support the evolution of the framework architecture. Extension rules in combination with the refactoring approach can be used to support framework evolution, assuring consistency with the previously instantiated applications. In this paper we present a refactoring tool that has been extended to support most complex refactorings to implement the extension rules. This feature allows framework redesign and evolution that are consistent with its application instances. © JOT, 2006.