An Empirical Study of Evolution of Inheritance in Java OSS

Nasseri, E.; Counsell, Steve; Shepperd, Martin

doi:10.1109/aswec.2008.4483215

Cited by 20 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…From the same figure, the maximum change of NOA takes place between versions 3 to 4. This trend was also observed in changes of number of methods in Nasseri et al (Nasseri et al 2008) suggesting that the system underwent major re-engineering between these two versions. From Figure 1, we see that DIT 1 and 2 is where the vast majority of activity takes place; developers tended to be relatively inactive at deeper levels of the inheritance hierarchy.…”

Section: Hsqldbsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Figure 9 shows the net changes of attributes in SwingWT (max DIT 7, 22 versions and 522 classes). A peak in version 9 of the system was also observed in changes of methods in Nasseri et al ) and classes in Nasseri et al (Nasseri et al 2008). In version 9 of SwingWT, the number of attributes increases by 645, accompanied by 1929 methods and 160 classes.…”

Section: Tyrantmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…In a recent empirical study of seven Java systems by the authors (Nasseri et al 2008), it was found that approximately 81% of all classes added over the course of the versions studied were added at inheritance level 1 (classes that extend 'Object'). Only 15% of classes were added to classes at inheritance level 2 and only 4% of classes were added at level 3 and beyond.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

System evolution at the attribute level: An empirical study of three Java OSS and their refactorings

Nasseri¹,

Counsell²

2009

Proceedings of the ITI 2009 31st International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces

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In this paper, we focus on the net changes in attributes across versions of OSS and use net class change data (class additions and deletions) as well as refactoring data from a previous study to inform our understanding of how those three systems evolved as they did. While the majority of new attributes were added at levels 1 and 2 of the inheritance, these patterns were not consistent. The research question addresses the evolutionary relationship between classes and attributes as well as the connection between those changes and refactorings. Although some evidence of attributes following patterns conformant with class additions was found, we also identified occurrences of attributes being added unilaterally. A strong correspondence was also found between attribute addition and the refactoring data. Finally, we explore features of a fourth system with seven inheritance levels for similar characteristics.

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Section: Hsqldbsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Tyrantmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

System evolution at the attribute level: An empirical study of three Java OSS and their refactorings

Nasseri¹,

Counsell²

2009

Proceedings of the ITI 2009 31st International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces

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“…As part of a recent empirical study of the addition of classes to a system called JBoss [Nas08], over 4000 classes were added between one version (19 and 20). From version 20 to 21, over 4000 classes were removed from the system.…”

Section: Research Question Re-visitedmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for the simulation of structural software evolution

Stopford

Counsell

2008

ACM Trans. Model. Comput. Simul.

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As functionality is added to an aging piece of software its original design and structure will tend to erode. This can lead to high coupling, low cohesion and other undesirable effects associated with spaghetti architectures. The underlying forces which cause such degradation have been the subject of much research. However, progress in this field is slow as its complexity makes it difficult to isolate the causal flows leading to these effects. This is further complicated by the difficulty of generating enough empirical data, in sufficient quantity, and attributing such data to specific points in the causal chain. This paper describes a framework for simulating the structural evolution of software. A complete simulation model is built by incrementally adding modules to the framework, each of which contributes an individual evolutionary effect. These effects are then combined to form a multi-faceted simulation that evolves a fictitious code base in a manner approximating real-world behavior. We describe the underlying principles and structures of our framework from a theoretical and user perspective; a validation of a simple set of evolutionary parameters is then provided and three empirical software studies generated from Open-Source Software (OSS) are used to support claims and generated results. The research illustrates how simulation can be used to investigate a complex and an under-researched area of the development cycle. It also shows the value of incorporating certain human traits into a simulation -factors that, in realworld system development, can significantly influence evolutionary structures.

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“…A recent study by Nasseri et al [Nasseri08] reported that 96% of incremental class changes over the course of the versions of four Java open-source systems studied were at inheritance levels 1 and 2 (where level 1 is immediately below Object). Only 4% of changes were made at levels 3 and below; this was largely because the majority of the system's classes were at DIT 1 and 2.…”

Section: 12mentioning

confidence: 99%

Size, Inheritance, Change and Fault-proneness in C# software.

Gatrell¹,

Counsell²

2010

JOT

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P u b l i s h e d b y E T H Z u r i c h , C h a i r o f S o f t w a r e E n g i n e e r i n g © J o t , 2 0 1 0 O n l i n e a t h t t p : / / w w w . Abstract This paper documents a study of change in commercial, proprietary C# software and attempts to determine whether a relationship exists between class changes and faults and the design context of a class, namely its size and inheritance relationships.Results showed a strong positive correlation between the size of a class and change-proneness but not for all the class features studied. Classes within a specific range of a) inheritance depth and b) number of children were found to be relatively more prone to change. For the fault data and for the same class features, similar results were found. The most striking result to emerge however was the existence of an inheritance depth 'interval' between which change (and faultproneness) were at their highest. Below and above that interval, both features were less prominent. The results thus add weight to the claims of other previous studies which suggest that there is an optimal level of inheritance, beyond which maintenance may become problematic from both a change and fault perspective.

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An Empirical Study of Evolution of Inheritance in Java OSS

Cited by 20 publications

References 22 publications

System evolution at the attribute level: An empirical study of three Java OSS and their refactorings

System evolution at the attribute level: An empirical study of three Java OSS and their refactorings

A framework for the simulation of structural software evolution

Size, Inheritance, Change and Fault-proneness in C# software.

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