The DOI matches its Crossref record; 30 of the 30 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
An Empirical Study of the Impact of Two Antipatterns, Blob and Spaghetti Code, on Program Comprehension
Abstract
Antipatterns are "poor" solutions to recurring design problems which are conjectured in the literature to make object-oriented systems harder to maintain. However, little quantitative evidence exists to support this conjecture. We performed an empirical study to investigate whether the occurrence of antipatterns does indeed affect the understandability of systems by developers during comprehension and maintenance tasks. We designed and conducted three experiments, with 24 subjects each, to collect data on the performance of developers on basic tasks related to program comprehension and assessed the impact of two antipatterns and of their combinations: Blob and Spaghetti Code. We measured the developers' performance with: (1) the NASA task load index for their effort, (2) the time that they spent performing their tasks, and, (3) their percentages of correct answers. Collected data show that the occurrence of one antipattern does not significantly decrease developers' performance while the combination of two antipatterns impedes significantly developers. We conclude that developers can cope with one antipattern but that combinations of antipatterns should be avoided possibly through detection and refactorings.
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Cites
Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical Research
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Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
Fowler, M. (2002) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/3-540-45672-4_31 · Cited by 5,591
Eye Tracking Methodology: Theory and Practice
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Experimentation in Software Engineering: An Introduction
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M. C., Regnell, B., & Wesslén, A. (2011) · Lund University Publications (Lund University) · Cited by 2,214
Refactoring improving the design of existing code
Saca, M. A. (2017) · 2017 IEEE 37th Central America and Panama Convention (CONCAPAN XXXVII) · doi:10.1109/concapan.2017.8278488 · Cited by 2,054
Experimentation in Software Engineering
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M. C., Regnell, B., & Wesslén, A. (2000) · The Kluwer International Series in Software Engineering · doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-4625-2 · Cited by 1,776
Eye Tracking Methodology; Theory and Practice
(2007) · Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal · doi:10.1108/13522750710740862 · Cited by 1,313
AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis
Brown, W. H., Malveau, R. C., McCormick, H. W., & Mowbray, T. J. (1998) · Cited by 932
DECOR: A Method for the Specification and Detection of Code and Design Smells
Moha, N., Gueheneuc, Y.-G., Duchien, L., & Le Meur, A.-F. (2010) · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · doi:10.1109/tse.2009.50 · Cited by 803
Self-citationParnas, D. L. (1994) · doi:10.5555/257734.257788 · Cited by 655
Cited by
Quantifying the Effect of Code Smells on Maintenance Effort
Sjoberg, D. I. K., Yamashita, A., Anda, B. C. D., Mockus, A., & Dyba, T. (2013) · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · doi:10.1109/tse.2012.89 · Cited by 316
Metadata
- Authors
- Abbes, M., Khomh, F., Gueheneuc, Y.-G., & Antoniol, G.
- Venue
- 2011 15th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2011-03
- Pages
- 181-190
- ISSN
- 1534-5351 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2108086273
- Cited by
- 309
- References
- 30
- FWCI
- 10.82
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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