Trends in Java code changes: the key to identification of refactorings?

Counsell, Ellie and Hassoun, Y. and Johnson, R. and Mannock, Keith and Mendes, E. (2003) Trends in Java code changes: the key to identification of refactorings? In: Power, J.F. and Waldron, W. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Programming in Java: PPPJ 2003. International Conference Proceeding Series 42. ACM, pp. 45-48. ISBN 9780954414511.

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Official URL: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=957305

Abstract

Changes made to object-oriented (OO) systems over time provide an insight into both design robustness and changes in requirements. When expressed at a high level of abstraction, observing trends in changes to code can indicate opportunities for refactoring at the architectural level. In this paper, we empirically investigate the changes made to a set of fifty-two Java library classes over a three year period. The research attempts to support the hypothesis that certain types of changes made to Java code fall into distinct trends and, furthermore, are likely to be made at a high level of abstraction; in this case to method signatures. Our empirical results show that change trends are identifiable thus informing well-known refactorings, but not as we had envisaged. Control logic constructs were found to be the focus of most changes to the library classes examined.

Metadata

Item Type:	Book Section
School:	Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Depositing User:	Sarah Hall
Date Deposited:	13 Jul 2021 14:54
Last Modified:	09 Aug 2023 12:51
URI:	https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/45075

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