skip to main content
research-article

Effect of software evolution on software metrics: an open source case study

Published: 30 September 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Software needs to evolve in order to be used for a longer period. The changes corresponding to corrective, preventive, adaptive and perfective maintenance leads to software evolution. In this paper we are presenting the results of study conducted on 13 versions of JHot Draw and 16 versions of Rhino released over the period of 10 years. We measured Object Oriented Metrics and studied the changes in the measured values over different releases of two medium sized software developed using Java. We also investigated the applicability of Lehman's Law of Software Evolution on Object Oriented Software Systems using different measures. We found that Lehman's laws related with increasing complexity and continuous growth are supported by the data and computed metrics measure.

References

[1]
Belady, L. A. and Lehman, M.M. 1976. A model of large program development. IBM Syst. J. 15, 225--252.
[2]
Chidamber, S.R. and Kemerer, C. F. 1994. A metrics suite for object oriented design. IEEE Transaction on. Software Engineering. 20, 6, 476--493.
[3]
Lehman, M.M. 1980. Programs, life cycles, and laws of software evolution. In Proceedings of the IEEE (Special issue of Software Engineering., 68,9, 1060--1076.
[4]
Lehman, M.M. 1980. On understanding laws, evolution, and conservation in the large-program life cycle. Journal of Systems and Software.1, 213--221.
[5]
Lehman, M.M. 1996. Laws of software evolution revisited. In Software Process Technology, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 1149, 108--124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017737
[6]
McCabe, T.J. 1976. A complexity measure. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 2, 4, 308--320.
[7]
Home page jhotdraw7. {Online}. Available: http://www.randelshofer.ch/oop/jhotdraw/index.html.
[8]
"Home page rhino." {Online}. Available: http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/.
[9]
Cook, S., Harrison, R., Lehman, M.M. and Wernick, P. 2006. Evolution in software systems: foundations of the spe classification scheme. Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice.18, 1, 1--35.
[10]
Jhotdraw project page. {Online}. Available:http://sourceforge.net/projects/jhotdraw/.
[11]
Rhino revision details. {Online}. Available:https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_Source_Code_Via_CVS.
[12]
Israeli, A. and Feitelson, D.G. 2010. The linux kernel as a case study in software evolution. Journal of Systems and Software. 83, 3, 485--501.
[13]
Basili, V.R., Briand, L. and Melo, W.L. 1995. A validation of object-oriented design metrics as quality indicators. IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering. 22, 751--761.
[14]
Gyimothy, T., Ferenc, R. and Siket, I. 2005. Empirical validation of object oriented metrics on open source software for fault prediction. IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering. 31, 897--910.
[15]
Godfrey, M.W. and Tu, Q. 2000. Evolution in open source software: A case study. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance. 131--142.
[16]
Godfrey, M.W. and Tu, Q. 2001. Growth, evolution, and structural change in open source software. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution, ser. IWPSE '01. New York, NY, USA. 103--106.
[17]
Kemerer, C. and Slaughter, S. 1999. An empirical approach to studying software evolution. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. 25, 4, 493--509.

Cited By

View all
  • (2025)A large-scale analysis of production effort changes in software projectsActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.47745/ausi-2024-001316:1(236-254)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2025
  • (2023)Parallelising semantic checking in an IDE: A way toward improving profits and sustainability, while maintaining high-quality software developmentActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.2478/ausi-2023-001615:2(239-266)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2023)An empirical investigation of social comparison and open source community healthInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1248534:2(499-532)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes  Volume 36, Issue 5
September 2011
160 pages
ISSN:0163-5948
DOI:10.1145/2020976
Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 September 2011
Published in SIGSOFT Volume 36, Issue 5

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. laws of software evolution
  2. open source
  3. revisions
  4. software complexity
  5. software evolution
  6. software metrics
  7. versions

Qualifiers

  • Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)18
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 17 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2025)A large-scale analysis of production effort changes in software projectsActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.47745/ausi-2024-001316:1(236-254)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2025
  • (2023)Parallelising semantic checking in an IDE: A way toward improving profits and sustainability, while maintaining high-quality software developmentActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.2478/ausi-2023-001615:2(239-266)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2023)An empirical investigation of social comparison and open source community healthInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1248534:2(499-532)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
  • (2022)Assessing the Impact of Code Samples Evolution on Developers’ QuestionsProceedings of the XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3555228.3555250(321-330)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
  • (2021)SEA: An UML Profile for Software Evolution Analysis in Design PhaseAdvances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal10.25046/aj06011536:1(1334-1342)Online publication date: Feb-2021
  • (2021)Open Source Community Health: Analytical Metrics and Their Corresponding Narratives2021 IEEE/ACM 4th International Workshop on Software Health in Projects, Ecosystems and Communities (SoHeal)10.1109/SoHeal52568.2021.00010(25-33)Online publication date: May-2021
  • (2018)Impact of the Object-oriented Software Evolution on Software Metrics: The Iris ApproachIndian Journal of Science and Technology10.17485/ijst/2018/v11i8/12114811:8(1-13)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2018
  • (2017)A theoretical model for capturing the impact of design patterns on qualityProceedings of the Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3019612.3019781(1231-1238)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2017
  • (2017)The evolution of open-source mobile applications: An empirical studyJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.185529:7(e1855)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2017
  • (2016)Internal quality evolution of a large test system – an industrial studyActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.1515/ausi-2016-00108:2(216-240)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2016
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media