scholarly journals A Tool-Based Perspective on Software Code Maintainability Metrics: A Systematic Literature Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Luca Ardito ◽  
Riccardo Coppola ◽  
Luca Barbato ◽  
Diego Verga
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Software Metrics ◽  
Software Project ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Software Maintainability ◽  
Software Code ◽  
Selection Of

Software maintainability is a crucial property of software projects. It can be defined as the ease with which a software system or component can be modified to be corrected, improved, or adapted to its environment. The software engineering literature proposes many models and metrics to predict the maintainability of a software project statically. However, there is no common accordance with the most dependable metrics or metric suites to evaluate such nonfunctional property. The goals of the present manuscript are as follows: (i) providing an overview of the most popular maintainability metrics according to the related literature; (ii) finding what tools are available to evaluate software maintainability; and (iii) linking the most popular metrics with the available tools and the most common programming languages. To this end, we performed a systematic literature review, following Kitchenham’s SLR guidelines, on the most relevant scientific digital libraries. The SLR outcome provided us with 174 software metrics, among which we identified a set of 15 most commonly mentioned ones, and 19 metric computation tools available to practitioners. We found optimal sets of at most five tools to cover all the most commonly mentioned metrics. The results also highlight missing tool coverage for some metrics on commonly used programming languages and minimal coverage of metrics for newer or less popular programming languages. We consider these results valuable for researchers and practitioners who want to find the best selection of tools to evaluate the maintainability of their projects or to bridge the discussed coverage gaps for newer programming languages.

scholarly journals Impact of Historical Software Metric Changes in Predicting Future Maintainability Trends in Open-Source Software Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 4624
Author(s):  
Mitja Gradišnik ◽  
Tina Beranič ◽  
Sašo Karakatič
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Maintenance ◽  
Software Metrics ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Measurement Data ◽  
Software Project ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Software Metric ◽  
Software Maintainability

Software maintenance is one of the key stages in the software lifecycle and it includes a variety of activities that consume the significant portion of the costs of a software project. Previous research suggest that future software maintainability can be predicted, based on various source code aspects, but most of the research focuses on the prediction based on the present state of the code and ignores its history. While taking the history into account in software maintainability prediction seems intuitive, the research empirically testing this has not been done, and is the main goal of this paper. This paper empirically evaluates the contribution of historical measurements of the Chidamber & Kemerer (C&K) software metrics to software maintainability prediction models. The main contribution of the paper is the building of the prediction models with classification and regression trees and random forest learners in iterations by adding historical measurement data extracted from previous releases gradually. The maintainability prediction models were built based on software metric measurements obtained from real-world open-source software projects. The analysis of the results show that an additional amount of historical metric measurements contributes to the maintainability prediction. Additionally, the study evaluates the contribution of individual C&K software metrics on the performance of maintainability prediction models.

scholarly journals A Systematic Literature Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Sustainable Selection of Insulation Materials in Buildings

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 737
Author(s):  
Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene ◽  
Dalia Streimikiene ◽  
Tomas Balezentis ◽  
Virgilijus Skulskis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Multi Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Selection Of

The European Commission has recently adopted the Renovation Wave Strategy, aiming at the improvement of the energy performance of buildings. The strategy aims to at least double renovation rates in the next ten years and make sure that renovations lead to higher energy and resource efficiency. The choice of appropriate thermal insulation materials is one of the simplest and, at the same time, the most popular strategies that effectively reduce the energy demand of buildings. Today, the spectrum of insulation materials is quite wide, and each material has its own specific characteristics. It is recognized that the selection of materials is one of the most challenging and difficult steps of a building project. This paper aims to give an in-depth view of existing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) applications for the selection of insulation materials and to provide major insights in order to simplify the process of methods and criteria selection for future research. A systematic literature review is performed based on the Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis (SALSA) framework and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. In order to determine which MCDM method is the most appropriate for different questions, the main advantages and disadvantages of different methods are provided.

scholarly journals A Study on Applicability of the Scrum Framework for Large Software Projects

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaweria Sultana
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Work Rate ◽  
Communication Overhead ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Good Communication

The primary objective of this research is to investigate the adaptability of the Scrum framework for large scale projects. A two phase approach has been undertaken towards the goal. The first phase involves conducting a systematic literature review to identify and elaborate scaling practices used in the current industry. The review also identifies the challenges faced by the developers when the Scrum framework is used for the development of large projects. The second phase involves the construction of a simulation model to analyze the dynamic behavior of the Scrum framework for large projects. The systematic literature review revealed that the major challenge while scaling Scrum is ensuring good communication among project members. The communication overhead was incorporated in the system dynamic model of the Scrum framework. The simulation results showed that there is a reduction in work rate when number of personnel is increased due to the increasing communication overhead.

An Empirical Study on the Architecture Instability of Software Projects

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (04) ◽  
pp. 515-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lerina Aversano ◽  
Daniela Guardabascio ◽  
Maria Tortorella
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Software Project ◽  
Software System ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
System Maturity ◽  
Multiple Releases ◽  
Initial Concept

Software architecture is an artifact that expresses how the initial concept of a software system has actually been implemented. However, changes to the requirement imply continuous modification of the software system and may affect its architecture. It is expected that when a software system reaches the mature state, the requirements for evolution decrease and its architecture becomes more stable. The paper analyzes how the architecture of a software system evolves during its life cycle, with the aim of obtaining quantitative information on its possible instability after it has been declared mature. The goal is to verify if the architectural instability decreases with the increase of the software system maturity and to identify the software components that are more unstable among multiple releases. The paper proposes metrics that measure the instability of the architecture of a software system and its components through different releases. Open source software projects classified as mature and active and related historical data are analyzed. The results of the empirical study point out that the instability of software projects continues to evolve even after they are declared mature. The proposed metrics give a useful support for investigating the instability of a software project, even if further factors can be analyzed. Furthermore, the study can be replicated on other software systems belonging to different domains and developed using different programming languages.

Trends and challenges of visual search interfaces in digital libraries and repositories

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Alonso Gaona-García ◽  
David Martin-Moncunill ◽  
Carlos Enrique Montenegro-Marin
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
User Interfaces ◽  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Information Visualisation ◽  
Knowledge Organisation ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

Purpose This paper aims to present an overview of the challenges encountered in integrating visual search interfaces into digital libraries and repositories. These challenges come in various forms, including information visualisation, the use of knowledge organisation systems and metadata quality. The main purpose of this study is the identification of criteria for the evaluation and integration of visual search interfaces, proposing guidelines and recommendations to improve information retrieval tasks with emphasis on the education-al context. Design/methodology/approach The information included in this study was collected based on a systematic literature review approach. The main information sources were explored in several digital libraries, including Science Direct, Scopus, ACM and IEEE, and include journal articles, conference proceedings, books, European project reports and deliverables and PhD theses published in an electronic format. A total of 142 studies comprised the review. Findings There are several issues that authors did not fully discuss in this literature review study; more specific, aspects associated with access of digital resources in digital libraries and repositories based on human computer interaction, i.e. usability and learnability of user interfaces; design of a suitable navigation method of search based on simple knowledge organisation schemes; and the use of usefulness of visual search interfaces to locate relevant resources. Research limitations/implications The main steps for carrying out a systematic review are drawn from health care; this methodology is not commonly used in fields such as digital libraries and repositories. The authors aimed to apply the fundamentals of the systematic literature review methodology considering the context of this study. Additionally, there are several aspects of accessibility that were not considered in the study, such as accessibility to content for disabled people as defined by ISO/IEC 40500:2012. Originality/value No other systematic literature reviews have been conducted in this field. The research presents an in-depth analysis of the criteria associated with searching and navigation methods based on the systematic literature review approach. The analysis is relevant for researchers in the field of digital library and repository creation in that it may direct them to considerations in designing and implementing visual search interfaces based on the use of information visualisation.

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