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Linking software design metrics to component change-proneness

Published: 24 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

One technique from value-based software engineering involves prioritising the system and selectively applying time-consuming techniques (such as traceability) in order to maximise return on investment. This prioritisation could be based on predicted change-proneness of code modules, if a sufficiently accurate prediction can be achieved. Several previous studies have examined links between software change-proneness and software metrics such as size and complexity. However, conclusions differ as to the strength of the relationships. We present here a new case study project, extracting a range of complexity values from the code modules and testing for the existence of a significant link between change-proneness and complexity. We find only limited evidence of a linear relationship, but analysis using other statistical techniques does reveal some other significant links.

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Cited By

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  • (2012)Using early stage project data to predict change-pronenessProceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics10.5555/2669379.2669387(42-48)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2012
  • (2012)Using early stage project data to predict change-proneness2012 3rd International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics (WETSoM)10.1109/WETSoM.2012.6226992(42-48)Online publication date: Jun-2012
  • (2011)Cost-Benefits of TraceabilitySoftware and Systems Traceability10.1007/978-1-4471-2239-5_2(23-42)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2011

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cover image ACM Conferences
WETSoM '11: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics
May 2011
90 pages
ISBN:9781450305938
DOI:10.1145/1985374
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]

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Publication History

Published: 24 May 2011

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Author Tags

  1. change-proneness
  2. design metrics
  3. software metrics
  4. software size
  5. value-based software engineering
  6. volatility

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ICSE11
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ICSE11: International Conference on Software Engineering
May 24, 2011
HI, Waikiki, Honolulu, USA

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Cited By

View all
  • (2012)Using early stage project data to predict change-pronenessProceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics10.5555/2669379.2669387(42-48)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2012
  • (2012)Using early stage project data to predict change-proneness2012 3rd International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics (WETSoM)10.1109/WETSoM.2012.6226992(42-48)Online publication date: Jun-2012
  • (2011)Cost-Benefits of TraceabilitySoftware and Systems Traceability10.1007/978-1-4471-2239-5_2(23-42)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2011

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