research-article

Enhancing design models with composition properties: a software maintenance study

Authors:

Francisco Dantas,

Alessandro Garcia,

João AraújoAuthors Info & Claims

AOSD '13: Proceedings of the 12th annual international conference on Aspect-oriented software development

Pages 49 - 60

https://doi.org/10.1145/2451436.2451444

Published: 24 March 2013 Publication History

Abstract

A considerable part of software design is dedicated for the composition of two or more modules. The implication is that changes made later in the implementation often require some reasoning about module composition properties. However, these properties are often not explicitly specified in design artefacts. Moreover, they cannot be easily inferred from the source code either. As a result, implicit composition properties may represent a major source of software maintenance complexity. This fact is particularly true with the advent of post object-oriented techniques, which are increasingly providing advanced mechanisms to enable flexible module composition. However, there is little empirical knowledge on how design models with explicitly-specified composition properties can improve software maintenance tasks. This paper reports an experiment that analyses the impact of design models enriched with composition properties on system maintenance. Explicit composition modelling was achieved in the experiment through a conservative approach, i.e., a specific set of additional UML stereotypes dedicated to model composition properties. The experiment involved 28 participants, who were asked to realize four maintenance tasks using UML design models with different levels of module composition details. Our findings suggested that explicit composition modelling contributed to better results in the realization of program change tasks, regardless of the developers' expertise. Users of composition-enhanced models consistently yielded better results when compared to users of plain UML models. The use of explicit composition specification also led to an average increase of 44.7% in the quality of changes produced by the participants

References

[1]

Kiczales, G. et al. 1997. Aspect-oriented programming. In Proceedings of the ECOOP, 220--242.

[2]

Aracic, I. et al. 2006. Overview of CaesarJ. Transactions on AOSD I, LNCS, 3880, 135--173.

Digital Library

[3]

Rajan, H. and Sullivan, K. 2005. Classpects: unifying aspect- and object-oriented language design. In Proceedings of the ICSE, 59- 68.

Digital Library

[4]

Bergmans, M. et al. 1992. Composition filters: extended expressiveness for OOPLs. Position paper for the OOPSLA: The Next Generation, Vancouver.

[5]

Kuzniarz, L. et al. 2004. An empirical study on using stereotypes to improve understanding of UML models. In Proceedings. of the IWPC, IEEE Computer Society, 14--23.

Digital Library

[6]

Dantas, F. and Garcia, A. 2010. Software Reuse versus Stability: Evaluating Advanced Programming Techniques. In Proceedings. of the SBES IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, 40--49.

Digital Library

[7]

Figueiredo, E. et al. 2008. Evolving software product lines with aspects: an empirical study on design stability. In Proceedings of the ICSE, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 261--270.

Digital Library

[8]

Dzidek, W. et al. 2008. A realistic empirical evaluation of the costs and benefits of UML in software maintenance. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng., vol. 3, 407--432.

Digital Library

[9]

Bente Anda, Kai Hansen, Ingolf Gullesen, and Hanne Kristin Thorsen. 2006. Experiences from introducing UML-based development in a large safety-critical project. Empirical Softw. Engg. 11, 4 (December 2006), 555--581.

Digital Library

[10]

Arisholm, E. et al. 2006. The impact of UML documentation on software maintenance: an experimental evaluation. IEEE Trans. Software Eng., vol. 32, 365--381.

Digital Library

[11]

Kuzniarz, L., Staron, M. and Wohlin, C. 2004. An empirical study on using stereotypes to improve understanding of UML models. In Proceedings. of the IWPC, IEEE Computer Society, 14--23.

Digital Library

[12]

Tryggeseth. E. 1997. Report from an experiment: impact of documentation on maintenance. Empirical Software Engineering: An International Journal, vol. 2 (2), 201--207.

Digital Library

[13]

Briand, L. C. 2003. Software documentation: how much is enough? In Proceedings of the CSMR, 13--15.

Digital Library

[14]

Briand, L. C. et al. 2005. An experimental investigation of formality in UML-based development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 31 (10), 833--849.

Digital Library

[15]

Agarwal, R. and Sinha, A. 2003. Object-oriented modeling with UML: a study of developers' perceptions. Commun ACM 46(9): 248--256, September.

Digital Library

[16]

Clarke, S. Composition of Object-Oriented Software Design Models, Ph.D. Thesis, Dublin City University, January 2001.

[17]

Farias, K., Garcia, A. and Lucena, C. Evaluating the Impact of Aspects on Inconsistency Detection Effort: A Controlled Experiment. In Proc. of the 15th MODELS 2012, Foundations Track, Innsbruck, Austria, September 30 - October 5, 2012.

Digital Library

[18]

Dantas, F. et al. 2012. On the role of composition code properties on evolving programs. In Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE international symposium on Empirical software engineering and measurement (ESEM '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 291--300

Digital Library

[19]

Chavez, C. et al. 2000. Taming heterogeneous aspects with crosscutting interfaces. In Proceedings. of the SBES, Uberlândia, Brazil, 216--231.

[20]

Chavez, C and Lucena, C. 2002. A metamodel for aspect-oriented modeling. In Proceedings of the AOM at AOSD, Enschede, the Netherlands, 10--18.

[21]

Buschmann, F. et al. 1996. Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: a System of Patterns. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Digital Library

[22]

Di Penta, M. et al. 2007. Designing your next empirical study on program comprehension. In Proceedings. of the ICPC IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, 281--285.

Digital Library

[23]

Kastner, C. et al. 2007. A case study implementing features using aspectj. In Proceedings of the SPLC, IEEE, USA, 223--232.

Digital Library

[24]

Alves, V. et al. 2006. Refactoring product lines. In Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Generative programming and component engineering (GPCE '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 201--210.

Digital Library

[25]

Burrows, R. et al. 2011. Reasoning about faults in aspect-oriented programs: a metrics-based evaluation. In Proceedings of the ICPC, 131--140.

Digital Library

[26]

Endrikat, S. and Hanenberg. S. 2011. Is aspect-oriented programming a rewarding investment into future code changes? a socio-technical study on development and maintenance time. In Proceedings of the ICPC, Kingston, Canada, 51--60.

Digital Library

[27]

Greenwood, P. et al. 2007. On the impact of aspectual decompositions on design stability: an empirical study. In Proceedings of the ECOOP, v. 4609, LNCS, 176--200, Springer.

Digital Library

[28]

Enhancing Design Models with Composition Properties: A Software Maintenance Study, Website Study. http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~fneto/aosd13/.

[29]

Wohlin, C. et al. 2000. Experimentation in software engineering: an introduction. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Norwell, USA.

Digital Library

[30]

Gurgel, A. et al. 2012. Integrating Software Product Lines: A Study of Reuse versus Stability. In Proceedings of COMPSAC 2012, 89--98.

Digital Library

[31]

Camilleri, A., Coulson, G. and Blair, L. 2009. CIF: A Framework for Managing Integrity in Aspect-Oriented Composition. In Proc. of the TOOLS (47), 18--36

[32]

Prehofer, C. 1997. Feature-Oriented Programming: A Fresh Look at Objects. In Proc. of ECOOP, 419--443

[33]

Katz, E. and Katz, S. 2009. Modular verification of strongly invasive aspects: summary. In Proc. of the FOAL, 7--12

Digital Library

[34]

Ferrari, F. et al. 2010. An Exploratory Study of Fault-Proneness in Evolving Aspect-Oriented Programs. In Proc. of ICSE 2010, 65 -- 74.

Digital Library

[35]

Schaefer, I. et al. 2010. Delta-Oriented Programming of Software Product Lines. In Proc. of SPLC, 77--91

Digital Library

[36]

Macia, I. et al. 2012. On the Relevance of Code Anomalies for Identifying Architecture Degradation Symptoms. In Proc. of CSMR, 277--286

Digital Library

[37]

Goldman, M. et al. 2010. MAVEN: modular aspect verification and interference analysis. Formal Methods in System Design 37(1): 61--92.

Digital Library

[38]

Burrows, R. et al. 2010. The Impact of Coupling on the Fault-Proneness of Aspect-Oriented Programs: An Empirical Study. In Proc. of ISSRE, 329--338.

Digital Library

[39]

Tourw, T. et al. 2003. On the existence of the AOSD-evolution paradox. In Proceedings of SPLAT: Software engineering Properties of Languages for Aspect Technologies, 1--5.

[40]

JBoss. Available at: http://www.jboss.org/

[41]

Spring. Available at: http://www.springsource.org/

[42]

M. Höst, B. Regnell, and C. Wohlin. 2000. Using Students as Subjects--A Comparative Study of Students and Professionals in Lead-Time Impact Assessment. Empirical Software Engineering, vol. 5, 201--214.

Digital Library

[43]

E. Arisholm and D. I. K. Sjoberg. 2004. Evaluating the Effect of a Delegated versus Centralized Control Style on the Maintainability of Object-Oriented Software. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 30, 521--534.

Digital Library

[44]

R. W. Holt, D. A. Boehm-Davis, and A. C. Shultz. 1987. Mental Representations of Programs for Student and Professional Programmers. In Proceedings of Empirical Studies of Programmers: Second Workshop33--46.

Digital Library

[45]

V. R. Basili, F. Shull, and F. Lanubile, "Building Knowledge through Families of Experiments. 1999. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 25, 456--473.

Digital Library

[46]

Nelio Cacho et al. 2006. Composing design patterns: a scalability study of aspect-oriented programming. In Proceedings of the 5th international conference on AOSD. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 109--121.

Digital Library

[47]

Alessandro Garcia et al. 2005. Modularizing design patterns with aspects: a quantitative study. In Proceedings of the 4th international conference on AOSD. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3--14.

Digital Library

[48]

C. Lobato et al. Evolving and Composing Frameworks with Aspects: The MobiGrid Case. In Proc. of the 7th ICCBSS, Madrid, Spain, 25--29.

Digital Library

Cited By

Thomazinho HL'Erario AFabri J(2017)A software maintenance strategy with a large number of users: A case study2017 12th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)10.23919/CISTI.2017.7975860(1-8)Online publication date: Jun-2017
https://doi.org/10.23919/CISTI.2017.7975860

Index Terms

Enhancing design models with composition properties: a software maintenance study
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software

Recommendations

On the role of composition code properties on evolving programs
ESEM '12: Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE international symposium on Empirical software engineering and measurement

Composition code defines the binding of two or more modules in a program. Post object-oriented programming techniques are increasingly providing expressive mechanisms to enable the flexible definition of composition code. Such composition mechanisms are ...
Handling transactional properties in web service composition
WISE'05: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Web Information Systems Engineering

The development of new services by composition of existing ones has gained considerable momentum as a means of integrating heterogeneous applications and realising business collaborations. Services that enter into compositions with other services may ...
Evolution of BPMN Models through e-VOL BPMN
SBQS '20: Proceedings of the XIX Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality

During software maintenance, software models play a fundamental role, as they assist in understanding the software that will be corrected or evolved. Business process models, generally produced using Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN), help ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

AOSD '13: Proceedings of the 12th annual international conference on Aspect-oriented software development

March 2013

232 pages

ISBN:9781450317665

DOI:10.1145/2451436

General Chair:
Hidehiko Masuhara
The University of Tokyo, Japan
,
Program Chairs:
Jörg Kienzle
McGill University, Canada
,
Elisa Baniassad
Australian National University, Australia
,
David H. Lorenz
The Open University of Israel, Israel

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

AOSA: Aspect-Oriented Software Association

In-Cooperation

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 March 2013

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

AOSD '13

Sponsor:

AOSA

AOSD '13: Aspect-Oriented Software Development

March 24 - 29, 2013

Fukuoka, Japan

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 41 of 139 submissions, 29%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

1
Total Citations
View Citations
187
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 07 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Thomazinho HL'Erario AFabri J(2017)A software maintenance strategy with a large number of users: A case study2017 12th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)10.23919/CISTI.2017.7975860(1-8)Online publication date: Jun-2017
https://doi.org/10.23919/CISTI.2017.7975860

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten