Software refactoring using complex networks

Refactoring a software artifact is an embedded task in the maintenance phase of the software life cycle. Refactoring software packages via community detection in complex software networks article in international journal of automation and computing 102 april 20 with 43 reads how we measure reads. Although refactoring does not add features or functionalities in a software system, it is sharp weapon for developers in their maintenance activities. Myers also examined software graphs as complex networks but provided a complete treatment of their directed nature as well as introducing a simple model of software evolution based on refactoring processes. Then software networks have been divided into different layers, and cf of software networks has been extracted by kcore. They use these to fix larger areas on problematic code that need dedicated attention. Refactoring packages of objectoriented software using. State key laboratory of software engineering, wuhan university, wuhan 430072, china. The purpose of undertaking a directed network treatment of the software graph is to study how connectivity of the constituent in and out.

Jun 15, 2007 myers also examined software graphs as complex networks but provided a complete treatment of their directed nature as well as introducing a simple model of software evolution based on refactoring processes. Here is an example of using the extract methods command from the command palette. Software package refactoring via community detection. My research focuses on intelligent software development including software refactoring, software ecosystem, dependency management, software testing, thirdparty libraries, etc. Aug 15, 2009 the quality of a software system is largely determined by its internal structures which always degrade over the software evolution. Identifying key classes of objectoriented software based. I am an associate professor in faculty of software college, northeastern university neu, china. Identifying key classes of objectoriented software based on. Refactoring is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code yet improves its internal structure. Jan 01, 20 software systems, as a typical kind of manmade complex systems, can also be studied using complex network theory. Refactoring software packages via community detection in. Many teams schedule refactoring as part of their planned work, using refactoring stories. Refactoring python applications for simplicity real python.

The reduced benefits of the limited refactoring was deemed not worth the effort by management, and given that similar reliability issues were being found in the hardware platform embedded project, the company decided it was their chance to renew the entire product, with the software written from scratch, new language, objects. Wang et al class level software refactoring using evolutionary algorithms91 sparser connections between groups. Those networks include both those occurring in nature, for example, neuron activity, cellular metabolisms, protein folding and social as software systems become larger and more networks, and those created by people, for example, complex, in order to understand, manage and evolve electricity supply networks, the web. Hu, complex network thinking in software engineering, 2008 international conference on computer science and software engineering 1 2008 pp. Extraction and analysis of crucial fraction in software. Ieee proof 1 automatic software refactoring via weighted 2 clustering in methodlevel networks 3 ying wang, hai yu, zhiliang zhu, member, ieee, wei zhang, and yuli zhao 4 abstractin this study, we describe a systemlevel multiple refactoring algorithm, which can identify the move method, move. And it has also opened new and broad opportunities for software refactoring. Find a clump of code within the long method that goes well together, create a new method with a. Pdf refactoring clustering in java software networks. May 17, 2014 and it has also opened new and broad opportunities for software refactoring. What are the advantages and disadvantages of refactoring.

Thus, how to provide a piece of software with high quality has been a. Lyapunov functions and dynamic programming equations lead to the celebrated maxweight policy. The workload model at the heart of traditional analysis of the single queue becomes a foundation for workload relaxations used in the treatment of complex networks. Unfolding software developers dynamics of online collaborative activities. If you use or are considering using pycharm as a python editor, its worth taking note of the powerful refactoring capabilities it has. Refactoring is an aspect of extreme programming that enables software developers, designers and architects to breathe new life into old code. Additionally, in many industries a finished product can be configured in specific ways for particular customers. Software systems are of great importance, whose quality will influence every walk of our life. In a software design network, each node is a class a specific part of. Automatic software refactoring via weighted clustering in method.

Refactoring clustering in java software networks springerlink. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, andor implementation of the software its nonfunctional attributes, while preserving the functionality of the software. Refactoring existing features implementing fitting design patterns. Apr 18, 2018 6 ways ai transforms how we develop software. In a software design network, each node is a class a specific part of a piece of software and each link represents a. X instead of x and implementing periodic boundary conditions. We find that classes affected by refactorings are more likely to be interlinked than others, forming connected subgraphs. In his famous book martin fowler defines refactoring as follows. Thinking about refactoring when moving to the cloud todays companies need to be much more agile and nimble, and users expect more simplicity and elegance in the applications they use. This paper studies the complex network structure of software design networks. Analyzing software systems structures and their evolution using complex networks. What are the advantages and disadvantages of refactoring code. To achieve this we adapt the concept of refactoring to deep neural networks.

Code refactoring 32 typically seeks to a restructure a software system to facilitate subsequent development activities, while b preserving the behavior of. Refactoring is the key to success with network function virtualization nfv. Mar 01, 2015 in complex software network research, people find that software networks have a distinct community structure, i. Code refactoring is a process used in the devops software development approach that involves editing and cleaning up previously written software code without changing the function of the code at all the basic purpose of code refactoring is to make the code more efficient and. I also present a simple model of software system evolution based on refactoring processes which captures some of the salient features of the. Class structure refactoring of objectoriented softwares. Refactoring entails reorganizing network functions and moving the resulting software components onto generalpurpose nfv infrastructure, while carefully scrutinizing the need to maintain existing protocols. Refactoring a software system means to refurbish it internally without interfering with its external properties.

Therefore, the structures have to be reconditioned from time to time. If a method is too long, it should be decomposed, using this refactoring technique. The last decade has witnessed the birth of a new movement of interest and research in the study of complex networks. Refactoring software packages via community detection in complex software networks article in international journal of automation and computing 102. Potential advantages of refactoring may include improved.

The quality of a software system is largely determined by its internal structures which always degrade over the software evolution. Code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer codechanging the factoringwithout changing its external behavior. From the point of view of entropy, software structure changes from chaos to order in the whole production process 9,10. Addison wesley, 1990 coleman dm, ash d, lowther b, et al. Software package refactoring via community detection in bipartite software networks, advances in complex systems acs, world scientific publishing co. In this paper, we present an approach to recondition the class structures of objectoriented oo. Class structure refactoring of objectoriented softwares using community detection in dependency networks weifeng pan 1, yutao ma 1, jing liu 1, yeyi qin 1, bing li 2, 1. In recent years, a few researchers introduced the complex network theory to software engineering domain, and used complex networks in. Thats why more companies now are thinking about refactoring when moving to the cloud. Practically, the requirements of the software are changing continuously that leads to continuous changes in the software. It uses weighted bipartite software networks to represent classes, packages, and their dependencies. Their work opens up an interdisciplinary research between complex networks and software engineering, and many physicslike laws of software networks have been revealed such as scalefree and smallworld 5,6,7,8.

Extraction and analysis of crucial fraction in software networks. Authors stefan roock and martin lippert help you to keep your software projects alive and show you how to successfully adapt and improve complex restructurings. Software systems, as a typical kind of manmade complex systems, can also be studied using complex network theory. Using metrics to evaluate software system maintainability. Over a period of time, the software starts becoming complex. Until now, complex networks have been applied in many different domains of software engineering, such as software refactoring 10, software element ranking 11, and software testing 12. Thus, to control these complex software systems, the first task that we should do is. Done properly, refactoring allows operators to achieve the key nfv objectives of reducing both complexity and cost. Automatic software refactoring via weighted clustering in methodlevel networks ying wang, hai yu, zhiliang zhu, member, ieee, wei zhang, and yuli zhao abstractin this study, we describe a systemlevel multiple refactoring algorithm, which can identify the move method, move. A complex networks perspective on collaborative software engineering 3 apart from such modeling approaches, numerous examples of networkbased empirical analyses of software structures exist. This article provides a motivation for architecture refactoring and discusses a few potential research directions for architecture refactoring.

What is refactoring and what is only modifying code. Ieee transactionon software engineering, 2004, 302. Code refactoring 32 typically seeks to a restructure a software system to facilitate subsequent development activities, while b preserving the behavior of the original software system. The importance of refactoring when moving to the cloud. The stability and evolution of the structure of consecutive versions of a series of software architecture graphs are analysed using the theory of complex networks. Cloned code is a hint of a missing abstraction in the application software. However, the existing methods are very complex and resourceconsuming when doing this task. In complex software network research, people find that software networks have a distinct community structure, i. Complex software systems are among most sophisticated. Though many refactoring approaches have been proposed, only a few of them are performed at the package. So successful software has to be reconditioned from time to time. Oct 22, 2014 refactoring entails reorganizing network functions and moving the resulting software components onto generalpurpose nfv infrastructure, while carefully scrutinizing the need to maintain existing protocols. Industrial software systems are typically complex and longlived. Measuring software modularity based on software networks.

Index termsclustering analysis, cohesion, coupling, complex network, software refactoring. Software systems can also be represented as complex networks, termed as software network, where software. Thus, to control these complex software systems, the first task that. In our primary work, we have proposed to represent objectoriented oo software by complex software networks, and used a community detection technique from complex network theory to refactor software at the class level.

Planned refactoring is a necessary element, but also is a sign that the team has not done enough refactoring using the other workflows. Refactoring is all about making your code more maintainable. And that means it must develop and deploy applications. Keshta department of computer engineering king fahd university of petroleum and minerals dhahran, saudi arabia abstractthe objective of software refactoring is to improve the software products quality by improving its performance and understandability. In the cellular communication industry, a chip set may be tailored for different networks and carriers, resulting in a complex feature matrix. Class level software refactoring using evolutionary. Furthermore, complex network theories have also been applied to refactor.

Most software systems contain a lot of cloned code our experience is 1020% and im surprised by the php report of smaller numbers in another answer. Social networks analysis started to develop in the early 1920s and focuses on relationships among social entities, as communication between members of a group, trades among nations, or economic transactions between corporations. Apr 25, 2016 this article provides a motivation for architecture refactoring and discusses a few potential research directions for architecture refactoring. However, with increase in their scale and complexity, we are unable to control their quality since only little is known about their actual internal structure. The empirical studies in this paper reveal that software networks represent flat hierarchical structure. Code refactoring is the process of changing a computer programs internal structure without modifying its external functional behavior or existing functionality, in order to improve internal nonfunctional properties of the software, for example to improve code readability, to simplify code structure, to change code to adhere to a given. Automatic software refactoring via weighted clustering in. In the words of martin fowler, the father of the code smell notion, refactoring is the process of changing a software system to improve its internal structure without altering. Refactoring clarifying and simplifying the design of.

We present a study on the refactoring activities performed during the evolution of 7 popular java open source software systems, using a complex network approach. Weifeng pan phd zhejiang gongshang university, hangzhou. It makes a software system easier to understand and cheaper to modify without changing its observable behavior by changing its internal structure. Finally, cf has been measured by the relevant complex network parameters respectively, and the relations between cf and.

It is an intrinsic property of realworld software to evolve, which is usually accompanied by the increase of software complexity and deterioration of software quality. In this paper, we introduce the complex network theory into software. In this paper, we present an approach to recondition the class. An example of a refactoring could be extract method figure 1.