In this paper, we develop techniques based on evolvability statistics of the fitness land-scape surrounding sampled solutions. Averaging the measures over a sample of equal fitness solutions allows us to build up fitness evolvability portraits of the fitness land-scape, which we show can be used to compare both the ruggedness and neutrality in a set of tunably rugged and tunably neutral landscapes. We further show that the tech-niques can be used with solution samples collected through both random sampling of the landscapes and online sampling during optimization. Finally, we apply the techniques to two real evolutionary electronics search spaces and highlight differences between the two search spaces, comparing with the time taken to find good solutions through search.

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Buy or rent? This question applies not only to houses and cars, but now to software.

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Sofhvare engineering is no longer the preserve of individuals but is essentially a team-based activity involving a wide variety of stakeholders and thus making the need for communication and co-operation an inherent characteristic.Changes in support technology, economic factors and globalisation of the sofhvare process is resulting in the geographical separation of personnel. Where such distribution of personnel occurs, it is clear that the quality of the project will be dependent upon the degree of effective communication and co-operation. This paper presents the results from a study of communication and co-operation practices on a range of distributed sofhvare projects from an industrial and educational context. It analyses the advantages and disadvantages of distributed sofrware engineering teams and presents the lessons learned from these studies including team structure, project management, communication and procedures.