Journal ArticleDOI
Quantifying the Effect of Code Smells on Maintenance Effort
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TLDR
To reduce maintenance effort, a focus on reducing code size and the work practices that limit the number of changes may be more beneficial than refactoring code smells.Abstract:
Context: Code smells are assumed to indicate bad design that leads to less maintainable code. However, this assumption has not been investigated in controlled studies with professional software developers. Aim: This paper investigates the relationship between code smells and maintenance effort. Method: Six developers were hired to perform three maintenance tasks each on four functionally equivalent Java systems originally implemented by different companies. Each developer spent three to four weeks. In total, they modified 298 Java files in the four systems. An Eclipse IDE plug-in measured the exact amount of time a developer spent maintaining each file. Regression analysis was used to explain the effort using file properties, including the number of smells. Result: None of the 12 investigated smells was significantly associated with increased effort after we adjusted for file size and the number of changes; Refused Bequest was significantly associated with decreased effort. File size and the number of changes explained almost all of the modeled variation in effort. Conclusion: The effects of the 12 smells on maintenance effort were limited. To reduce maintenance effort, a focus on reducing code size and the work practices that limit the number of changes may be more beneficial than refactoring code smells.read more
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Recommendations for Intelligent Code Reorganization.
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Proceedings ArticleDOI
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References
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TL;DR: Almost every expert in Object-Oriented Development stresses the importance of iterative development, but how do you add function to the existing code base while still preserving its design integrity?
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A survey of software refactoring
Tom Mens,Tom Tourwe +1 more
TL;DR: This research is compared and discussed based on a number of different criteria: the refactoring activities that are supported, the specific techniques and formalisms that are used for supporting these activities, the types of software artifacts that are being refactored, the important issues that need to be taken into account when buildingRefactoring tool support, and the effect of refactors on the software process.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Systematic Literature Review on Fault Prediction Performance in Software Engineering
TL;DR: Although there are a set of fault prediction studies in which confidence is possible, more studies are needed that use a reliable methodology and which report their context, methodology, and performance comprehensively.
Journal ArticleDOI
DECOR: A Method for the Specification and Detection of Code and Design Smells
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