Abstract: A method for effecting software maintenance in a software system landscape comprising a central control system and a plurality of logical systems interconnected by logical transport paths, each system having associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles is described. The method comprises: providing system role types, each system role type comprising a group of system roles; providing an association of tasks to system role types; providing a transport track that defines a route for software services through a group of systems in a particular order and specifies one source system in which software services are permitted, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one target system, each software service relating to at least one of the code and the data of at least one system in the landscape; and generating a maintenance instance from the system role types, the association and the transport tracks, the maintenance instance defining tasks for effecting a software service in a maintenance interval.

Abstract: A method is provided that speeds up software testing using abbreviation of software tests that skips the execution of a portion of the software test. Intermediate results are generated for one or more software tests, with each intermediate result corresponding to a software test, and a respective key is generated from each intermediate result. A determination is made whether the respective key for each intermediate result is stored in a file cache used for storing files under keys. Generation of a final result for the corresponding software test of each intermediate result is bypassed in response to the respective key being present in the file cache. A final result for the corresponding software test of each intermediate result is generated from the intermediate result in response to the respective key not being present in the file cache. The respective key is stored in the file cache in response to generation of each final result.

Abstract: An engine is provided for displaying an application for hosting a second application. The hosting application can be a sidebar on a display. The engine can contain a part or program which can include a manifest file, a definition file and/or a script file. The manifest file may contain a pointer to at least one of the definition file and the script file. The engine may also contain a loader that can locate the definition file and/or script file (e.g., via pointers in the manifest file) and load the definition file and/or script files of the part for processing. The engine may also execute script associated with the part and convert an object model into a user interface which can be displayed at a predetermined location on a display or docked onto a sidebar. The user interface can further be manipulated or relocated within the sidebar or removed (i.e., undocked) from the sidebar.

Abstract: A method and system for regression testing of a computer software. The method and system execute the software for a first time to create a first data set; execute the software for a second time after the first time to create a second data set; compare the two data sets to determine differences between the two data sets; and store the differences as allowable differences to be ignored in a subsequent regression testing of the software.

Abstract: A software program can be represented as a map depicting respective software components of the software program. A grid system can be used, and map elements can be contiguous geometric shapes. Affinity between the software components can be represented in the map, such as by placing corresponding map elements close to one other in the map. During navigation through source code, an indication of where within the source code the navigation has occurred can be displayed on the map. Paths can be shown on the map. A technique for building the map can rely on a metric of a software component when generating a corresponding map element in the software map. The map can be depicted as a geographic map to help developers locate components.