Applying AI to Software Renovation

Lockheed Martin InVision provides software renovation and sustainment services, including analyzing systems for interesting features, transforming systems to new environments, and recasting systems to new architectures and languages. We seek an optimal blend of effort by automating the straightforward parts of a reengineering task under human control. We achieve this automation through a judicious combination of artificial intelligence and compiler-compiler techniques. This paper describes the InVision tool set and reengineering process and presents some examples of the applications of this technology.     

From the Editor in Chief: Looking Backward

Looking back at his original column, "The Arachnoid Tourist," EIC Robert Filman discusses the perils of trying to predict the future.     

Labor pains [employment game]

The Internet is changing the way the employment game is played. Employers and job seekers connect in various ways, both public and private. Traditionally, employers publicly advertise positions, while privately, much hiring happens through social networking. In 2005, more than half of all hiring in a surveyed group of employers came from the Web, split among corporate Web sites and career boards. Much contracting is conducted through the intermediary of staffing agencies. Staffing agencies serve two roles: information brokers and legal shields. Employees expect a long-term relationship, career growth, and social definition. Contractors, on the other hand, must manage their own marketing and continuing education. In a strange way, these contractors had greater long-term income security, as the ceaseless social networking left them far better prepared to handle transitions.