Title :
Studying the Effect of Refactorings: A Complexity Metrics Perspective
Author :
Soetens, Quinten David ; Demeyer, Serge
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Math. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
fDate :
Sept. 29 2010-Oct. 2 2010
Abstract :
Refactoring is widely recognized as a way to improve the internal structure of a software system in order to ensure its long-term maintainability. Consequently, software projects which adopt refactoring practices should see reductions in the complexity of their code base. We evaluated this assumption on an open source system-namely PMD, a Java source code analyzer-and discovered that periods of refactorings did not affect the cyclomatic complexity. This paper investigates this counterintuitive phenomenon through a detailed analysis of the actual source code manipulations applied on the system under study.
Keywords :
Java; public domain software; software maintenance; software management; software metrics; source coding; Java source code analyzer; complexity metrics perspective; cyclomatic complexity; internal structure; long-term maintainability; open source system; refactorings; software projects; software system; Complexity theory; Couplings; Java; Mathematical analysis; Measurement; Software systems; Complexity; Maintenance; Mining Software Repositories; Refactoring; Software Evolution;
Conference_Titel :
Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC), 2010 Seventh International Conference on the
Conference_Location :
Porto
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-8539-0
Electronic_ISBN :
978-0-7695-4241-6
DOI :
10.1109/QUATIC.2010.58
