Experimental assessment of the effect of inheritance on the maintainability of object-oriented systems

Harrison, Rachel; Counsell, Steve; Nithi, R.

doi:10.1016/s0164-1212(99)00144-2

Cited by 123 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Many studies of inheritance have shown that systems typically have a very low median DIT value [Bieman95, Cartwright00, Nasseri08]. Several studies have also suggested that DIT 3 is the threshold level before inheritance becomes unwieldy and impractical to use [Daly96,Harrison97] and the evidence here seems to support that trend. Figure 8 shows that there is a clear peak in the propensity for class change at DIT 5 and 6.…”

Section: Dit Analysis (H2)supporting

confidence: 61%

“…Both of these metrics, originally defined by C&K [Chidamber94], have been used extensively in empirical studies since [Basili96,Daly96,Harrison97]. DIT was collected by considering each class in the WebCSC system and determining the maximum length of the path from the class to its root class.…”

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The extent to which these benefits can be realized is an issue of significant interest for exploratory, empirical software engineering studies. A number of studies have also cast doubt on the extent to which deep levels of inheritance assist with the maintainability of a system [Prechelt03,Cartwright00,Harrison97,Basili96].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Dit Analysis (H2)supporting

confidence: 61%

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Gatrell¹,

Counsell²

2010

JOT

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“…Other authors correlated other metrics different from the scattering degree to the source code fault proneness. For instance, Harrison et al [19] performed a controlled experiment to analyse the effect of varying levels of inheritance on changeability, showing that larger systems are equally difficult to understand whether or not they contain inheritance. More recently, Nagappan and Ball [26] presented a technique to predict system defect density using a set of relative code churn measures, i.e., changes made to a component over a period of time.…”

Section: Crosscutting Concern Fault Pronenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship between design patterns defects and crosscutting concern scattering degree: an empirical study

Cerulo

Penta

2009

IET Softw.

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“…Harrison et al [9] subdivided maintainability into modifiability and understandability. All in all, an adequate way of engineering processes should fulfill the requirements of flexible programming (R1) and those of maintainability (R2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Selected Control Programming Languages for Process Engineers by Means of Cognitive Effectiveness and Dimensions

Bayrak¹,

Ocker²,

Vogel‐Heuser³

2017

JSEA

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Different programming languages can be used for discrete, abstract and process-oriented programming. Depending on the application, there exist additional requirements, which are not fulfilled by every programming language. Flexible programming and maintainability are especially important requirements for process engineers. In this paper, the programming languages Activity Diagram, State Chart Diagram and Sequential Function Chart are compared and evaluated with regard to these requirements. This evaluation is based on the principles of cognitive effectiveness and cognitive dimensions. The aim of this paper is to identify the programming language suited best for controlling sequential processes, e.g. thermomechanical or batch processes.

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Experimental assessment of the effect of inheritance on the maintainability of object-oriented systems

Cited by 123 publications

References 14 publications

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

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

Relationship between design patterns defects and crosscutting concern scattering degree: an empirical study

Evaluation of Selected Control Programming Languages for Process Engineers by Means of Cognitive Effectiveness and Dimensions

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