Article

How much does unused code matter for maintenance?

Authors:

Sebastian Eder,

Maximilian Junker,

Elmar Jürgens,

Benedikt Hauptmann,

Karl-Heinz PrommerAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '12: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 1102 - 1111

Published: 02 June 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Software systems contain unnecessary code. Its maintenance causes unnecessary costs. We present tool-support that employs dynamic analysis of deployed software to detect unused code as an approximation of unnecessary code, and static analysis to reveal its changes during maintenance. We present a case study on maintenance of unused code in an industrial software system over the course of two years. It quantifies the amount of code that is unused, the amount of maintenance activity that went into it and makes the potential benefit of tool support explicit, which informs maintainers that are about to modify unused code.

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Cited By

Caivano DCassieri PRomano SScanniello GLanubile F(2021)An Exploratory Study on Dead Methods in Open-source Java Desktop ApplicationsProceedings of the 15th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1145/3475716.3475773(1-11)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3475716.3475773
Haas RNiedermayr RRöhm TApel SMussbacher GAtlee JBultan T(2019)Recommending unnecessary source code based on static analysisProceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1109/ICSE-Companion.2019.00111(274-275)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-Companion.2019.00111
Yoshida NIshizu TEdwards BInoue KKhomh FRoy CSiegmund J(2018)How slim will my system be?Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Program Comprehension10.1145/3196321.3196353(352-360)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196321.3196353
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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '12: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering

June 2012

1657 pages

ISBN:9781467310673

General Chair:
Martin Glinz,
Program Chairs:
Gail Murphy,
Mauro Pezzè

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 02 June 2012

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Conference

ICSE '12

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT

ICSE '12: 34th International Conference on Software Engineering

June 2 - 9, 2012

Zurich, Switzerland

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Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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Cited By

Caivano DCassieri PRomano SScanniello GLanubile F(2021)An Exploratory Study on Dead Methods in Open-source Java Desktop ApplicationsProceedings of the 15th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1145/3475716.3475773(1-11)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3475716.3475773
Haas RNiedermayr RRöhm TApel SMussbacher GAtlee JBultan T(2019)Recommending unnecessary source code based on static analysisProceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1109/ICSE-Companion.2019.00111(274-275)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-Companion.2019.00111
Yoshida NIshizu TEdwards BInoue KKhomh FRoy CSiegmund J(2018)How slim will my system be?Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Program Comprehension10.1145/3196321.3196353(352-360)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196321.3196353
Bastos CJunior PCosta HSiqueira FVilain PCappelli CWazlawick R(2016)Detection Techniques of Dead Code: Systematic Literature ReviewProceedings of the XII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems on Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems: Information Systems in the Cloud Computing Era - Volume 110.5555/3021955.3021998(255-262)Online publication date: 17-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3021955.3021998
Eichberg MHermann BMezini MGlanz LDi Nitto EHarman MHeymans P(2015)Hidden truths in dead software pathsProceedings of the 2015 10th Joint Meeting on Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/2786805.2786865(474-484)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2786805.2786865
Eder SHauptmann BJunker MVaas RPrommer KZhu HGao JSinha SZhang L(2014)Selecting manual regression test cases automatically using trace link recovery and change coverageProceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Automation of Software Test10.1145/2593501.2593506(29-35)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2593501.2593506
Eder SHauptmann BJunker MJuergens EVaas RPrommer KZhu HMuccini HChen Z(2013)Did we test our changes?Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Automation of Software Test10.5555/2662413.2662437(107-110)Online publication date: 18-May-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2662413.2662437

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