Variance of source code quality change caused by version control operations

Software maintenance consumes huge efforts. Its cost strongly depends on the quality of the source code: an easy-to-maintain code needs much less effort than the maintenance of a more problematic one. Based on experiences, the maintainability of the source code tends to decrease during its lifetime....

Teljes leírás

Elmentve itt :
Bibliográfiai részletek
Szerző: Faragó Csaba
Dokumentumtípus: Cikk
Megjelent: 2015
Sorozat:Acta cybernetica 22 No. 1
Kulcsszavak:Számítógép - programozás
Tárgyszavak:
doi:10.14232/actacyb.22.1.2015.4

Online Access:http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/36098
LEADER 02500nab a2200229 i 4500
001 acta36098
005 20220620101149.0
008 161017s2015 hu o 0|| eng d
022 |a 0324-721X 
024 7 |a 10.14232/actacyb.22.1.2015.4  |2 doi 
040 |a SZTE Egyetemi Kiadványok Repozitórium  |b hun 
041 |a eng 
100 1 |a Faragó Csaba 
245 1 0 |a Variance of source code quality change caused by version control operations  |h [elektronikus dokumentum] /  |c  Faragó Csaba 
260 |c 2015 
300 |a 35-56 
490 0 |a Acta cybernetica  |v 22 No. 1 
520 3 |a Software maintenance consumes huge efforts. Its cost strongly depends on the quality of the source code: an easy-to-maintain code needs much less effort than the maintenance of a more problematic one. Based on experiences, the maintainability of the source code tends to decrease during its lifetime. However, in most of the cases, this decrease is not a smooth linear one, but there are larger and smaller ups and downs, and the net root of these changes generally results in a negative tendency. Detecting common development patterns which similarly influence the maintainability could help to stop or even turn back source code erosion. In this research the scale of the ups and downs are investigated, namely that which version control operations cause bigger and which smaller changes in the maintainability. We calculated the maintainability and collected the cardinality of each version control operation for every revision of four inspected software systems. With the help of these data we checked which version control operation causes higher absolute code quality changes and which lower. We found clear connection between version control operations and the variance of the maintainability changes. File Additions and file Deletions caused significantly higher variance in maintainability changes compared to file Updates. Commits containing higher number of operations - regardless of the type of the operation - caused higher variance in maintainability changes than those commits containing lower number of operations. As a practical conclusion, it is recommended to pay special attention to the quality of commits containing new file additions, e.g. with the help of a mandatory code review. 
650 4 |a Természettudományok 
650 4 |a Számítás- és információtudomány 
695 |a Számítógép - programozás 
856 4 0 |u http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/36098/1/actacyb_22_1_2015_4.pdf  |z Dokumentum-elérés