The development of a software system is now ever more frequently a part of a larger development effort, including multiple software systems that co-exist in the same environment: a software ecosystem. Though most studies of the evolution of software have focused on a single software system, there is much that we can learn from the analysis of a set of interrelated systems. Topic modeling techniques show promise for mining the data stored in software repositories to understand the evolution of a system.
One of the most difficult tasks in debugging software for a developer is to understand the nature of the fault. Techniques have been proposed by researchers that can help *locate* the fault, but mostly neglected is a way to describe the nature of the fault. We are developing software models, visualizations, and techniques to aid in the diagnosis of the faults in the software.