Underpinning Theories of Software Engineering: Dynamism in Physical Sources of the Shannon Weaver Communication Model
This addresses the theoretical foundation problem in software engineering, but it is incremental as it builds on existing information theory concepts.
The paper tackles the lack of underpinning scientific theories in software engineering by exploring how the Shannon Weaver communication model can be extended to represent physical systems in conceptual modeling, showing feasibility for this application.
This paper aims to contribute to further understanding of dynamism (the dynamic behavior of system models) in the mathematical and conceptual modeling of systems. This study is conducted in the context of the claim that software engineering lacks underpinning scientific theories, both for the software it produces and the processes by which it does so. The research literature proposes that information theory can provide such a benefit for software engineering. We explore the dynamism expressive power of conceptual modeling as a software engineering tool that can represent physical systems in the Shannon Weaver communication model (SWCM). Specifically, the modeled source in the SWCM is a physical phenomenon (a change that can occur in the world, e.g., tossing a coin) resulting in generating observable events and data of unaddressed information. The resultant model reflects the feasibility of extending the SWCM to be applied in conceptual modeling in software engineering.