research-article

How Does Incomplete Composite Refactoring Affect Internal Quality Attributes?

Authors:

Ana Carla Bibiano,

Vinicius Soares,

Daniel Coutinho,

Eduardo Fernandes,

João Lucas Correia,

Anderson Oliveira,

Alessandro Garcia,

Baldoino Fonseca,

Márcio Ribeiro,

Daniel OliveiraAuthors Info & Claims

ICPC '20: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Program Comprehension

Pages 149 - 159

https://doi.org/10.1145/3387904.3389264

Published: 12 September 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Program refactoring consists of code changes applied to improve the internal structure of a program and, as a consequence, its comprehensibility. Recent studies indicate that developers often perform composite refactorings, i.e., a set of two or more interrelated single refactorings. Recent studies also recommend certain patterns of composite refactorings to fully remove poor code structures, i.e, code smells, thus further improving the program comprehension. However, other recent studies report that composite refactorings often fail to fully remove code smells. Given their failure to achieve this purpose, these composite refactorings are considered incomplete, i.e, they are not able to entirely remove a smelly structure. Unfortunately, there is no study providing an in-depth analysis of the incompleteness nature of many composites and their possibly partial impact on improving, maybe decreasing, internal quality attributes. This paper identifies the most common forms of incomplete composites, and their effect on quality attributes, such as coupling and cohesion, which are known to have an impact on program comprehension. We analyzed 353 incomplete composite refactorings in 5 software projects, two common code smells (Feature Envy and God Class), and four internal quality attributes. Our results reveal that incomplete composite refactorings with at least one Extract Method are often (71%) applied without Move Methods on smelly classes. We have also found that most incomplete composite refactorings (58%) tended to at least maintain the internal structural quality of smelly classes, thereby not causing more harm to program comprehension. We also discuss the implications of our findings to the research and practice of composite refactoring.

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Cited By

Ouni AAlOmar EHamdi OCinnéide MMkaouer MSaied M(2023)On the impact of single and co-occurrent refactorings on quality attributes in android applicationsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2023.111817205(111817)Online publication date: Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2023.111817
Brito AHora ATulio Valente M(2023)Towards a catalog of composite refactoringsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.2530Online publication date: 22-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2530
Leandro OGheyi RTeixeira LRibeiro MGarcia A(2022)A Technique to Test Refactoring Detection ToolsProceedings of the XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3555228.3555246(188-197)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555228.3555246
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Index Terms

How Does Incomplete Composite Refactoring Affect Internal Quality Attributes?
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software post-development issues
      1. Software evolution
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Software maintenance tools

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICPC '20: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Program Comprehension

July 2020

481 pages

ISBN:9781450379588

DOI:10.1145/3387904

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

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Published: 12 September 2020

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ICPC '20: 28th International Conference on Program Comprehension

July 13 - 15, 2020

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Cited By

Ouni AAlOmar EHamdi OCinnéide MMkaouer MSaied M(2023)On the impact of single and co-occurrent refactorings on quality attributes in android applicationsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2023.111817205(111817)Online publication date: Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2023.111817
Brito AHora ATulio Valente M(2023)Towards a catalog of composite refactoringsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.2530Online publication date: 22-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2530
Leandro OGheyi RTeixeira LRibeiro MGarcia A(2022)A Technique to Test Refactoring Detection ToolsProceedings of the XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3555228.3555246(188-197)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555228.3555246
Coutinho DUchoa ABarbosa CSoares VGarcia ASchots MPereira JAssuncao W(2022)On the Influential Interactive Factors on Degrees of Design Decay: A Multi-Project Study2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00093(753-764)Online publication date: Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00093
Sellitto GIannone ECodabux ZLenarduzzi VDe Lucia APalomba FFerrucci F(2022)Toward Understanding the Impact of Refactoring on Program Comprehension2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00090(731-742)Online publication date: Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00090
Bibiano A(2022)Completeness of Composite Refactorings for Smell Removal2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion)10.1109/ICSE-Companion55297.2022.9793758(264-268)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-Companion55297.2022.9793758
Bibiano AAssuncao WCoutinho DSantos KSoares VGheyi RGarcia AFonseca BRibeiro MOliveira DBarbosa CMarques JOliveira A(2021)Look Ahead! Revealing Complete Composite Refactorings and their Smelliness Effects2021 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME52107.2021.00033(298-308)Online publication date: Sep-2021
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Brito AHora AValente M(2021)Characterizing refactoring graphs in Java and JavaScript projectsEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-021-10023-326:6Online publication date: 18-Sep-2021
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Oizumi WBibiano ACedrim DOliveira ASousa LGarcia AOliveira DCavalcante EDantas FBatista T(2020)Recommending Composite Refactorings for Smell RemovalProceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3422392.3422423(72-81)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
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Paixão MUchôa ABibiano AOliveira DGarcia AKrinke JArvonio E(2020)Behind the IntentsProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3379597.3387475(125-136)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2020
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