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Using CBR and CART to predict maintainability of relational database-driven software applications

Published: 14 April 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Background: Relational database-driven software applications have gained significant importance in modern software development. Given that software maintainability is an important quality attribute, predicting these applications' maintainability can provide various benefits to software organizations, such as adopting a defensive design and more informed resource management. Aims: The aim of this paper is to present the results from employing two well-known prediction techniques to estimate the maintainability of relational database-driven applications. Method: Case-based reasoning (CBR) and classification and regression trees (CART) were applied to data gathered on 56 software projects from software companies. The projects concerned development and/or maintenance of relational database-driven applications. Unlike previous studies, all variables (28 independent and 1 dependent) were measured on a 5-point bi-polar scale. Results: Results showed that CBR performed slightly better (at 76.8% correct predictions) in terms of prediction accuracy when compared to CART (67.8%). In addition, the two important predictors identified were documentation quality and understandability of the applications. Conclusions: The results show that CBR can be used by software companies to formalize and improve their process of maintainability prediction. Future work involves gathering more data and also employing other prediction techniques.

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Cited By

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  • (2021)Regression in Estimation of Software Attributes: A Systematic Literature Review2021 9th International Conference in Software Engineering Research and Innovation (CONISOFT)10.1109/CONISOFT52520.2021.00019(54-60)Online publication date: Oct-2021
  • (2020)A systematic literature review on empirical studies towards prediction of software maintainabilitySoft Computing10.1007/s00500-020-05005-4Online publication date: 28-May-2020
  • (2014)A Way to Predict and Evaluate of Software Maintainability Based on Machine LearningAdvanced Materials Research10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.926-930.2924926-930(2924-2927)Online publication date: May-2014

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cover image ACM Other conferences
EASE '13: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering
April 2013
268 pages
ISBN:9781450318488
DOI:10.1145/2460999
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

  • Centro de Informatica - UFPE: Centro de Informatica - UFPE
  • SBC: Brazilian Computer Society
  • CNPq: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecn
  • CAPES: Brazilian Higher Education Funding Council

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 14 April 2013

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Author Tags

  1. case-based reasoning
  2. classification trees
  3. maintainability
  4. prediction
  5. relational database-driven software applications

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  • Research-article

Funding Sources

  • Knowledge Foundation in Sweden

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EASE '13
Sponsor:
  • Centro de Informatica - UFPE
  • SBC
  • CNPq
  • CAPES

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EASE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 31 of 94 submissions, 33%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 71 of 232 submissions, 31%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2021)Regression in Estimation of Software Attributes: A Systematic Literature Review2021 9th International Conference in Software Engineering Research and Innovation (CONISOFT)10.1109/CONISOFT52520.2021.00019(54-60)Online publication date: Oct-2021
  • (2020)A systematic literature review on empirical studies towards prediction of software maintainabilitySoft Computing10.1007/s00500-020-05005-4Online publication date: 28-May-2020
  • (2014)A Way to Predict and Evaluate of Software Maintainability Based on Machine LearningAdvanced Materials Research10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.926-930.2924926-930(2924-2927)Online publication date: May-2014

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