Authors:
Cristina Marinescu
1
and
Mihai Codoban
2
Affiliations:
1
Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania
;
2
Oregon State University, United States
Keyword(s):
Inheritance, Class Hierarchies, Changes, Defects, Source Code, Software Repositories.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Service-Oriented Software Engineering and Management
;
Software Engineering
;
Software Engineering Methods and Techniques
;
Software Quality Management
;
Software Testing and Maintenance
Abstract:
One of the key mechanisms of object-oriented programming is inheritance. Some empirical studies show that classes inheriting behavior from more classes (i.e., ancestors) are more defect prone than the other classes. Since various collaborations are found among the instances of classes, classes are not isolated within the source code of object-oriented systems. In this paper, we investigate if classes using classes inheriting behaviour from other classes are more change and defect prone than the other classes. We analyze at least three releases of every system belonging to a suite of seven open source systems and investigate the relations between classes that use/do not use class hierarchies and study the change and defect proneness of those classes. The results
frequently show that the clients of classes which inherit behaviour are more change and defect prone. These findings show a new type of correlation between the clients of class hierarchies and changes/defects, bringing evidenc
e related to an increased likelihood of exhibiting changes and defects for the clients of class hierarchies. We believe that the inferred correlations are due to an improper usage of class hierarchies but further studies are needed for confirmation.
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