dc.contributor.author | Counsell, S. | |
dc.contributor.author | Hall, T. | |
dc.contributor.author | Bowes, D. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2011-04-26T08:16:09Z | |
dc.date.available | 2011-04-26T08:16:09Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2010 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Counsell , S , Hall , T & Bowes , D 2010 , ' A theoretical and empirical analysis of three slice-based metrics for cohesion ' , International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering , vol. 20 , no. 5 , pp. 609-636 . https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218194010004888 | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0218-1940 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE: 93519 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE UUID: ca6c974d-1f2f-4586-83da-1d83769654fa | |
dc.identifier.other | dspace: 2299/5734 | |
dc.identifier.other | Scopus: 78650607491 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2299/5734 | |
dc.description | Original article can be found at : http://www.worldscinet.com/ Copyright World Scientific Publishing [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA] | |
dc.description.abstract | Sound empirical research suggests that we should analyze software metrics from a theoretical and practical perspective. This paper describes the result of an investigation into the respective merits of two cohesion-based metrics for program slicing. The Tightness and Overlap metrics were those originally proposed by Weiser for the procedural paradigm. We compare and contrast these two metrics with a third metric for the OO paradigm first proposed by Counsell et al. based on Hamming Distance and based on a matrix-based notation. We theoretically validated the three metrics using the properties of Kitchenham and then empirically validated the same three metrics; some revealing properties of the metrics were found as a result. In particular, that the OO-based metric was the most stable of the three; module length was not a confounding factor for the Hamming Distance-based metric; it was however for the two slice-based metrics supporting previous work by Meyers and Binkley. The number of module slices however, was found to be an even stronger influence on the values of the two slice-based metrics, whose near perfect correlation with each other suggests that they may be measuring the same software attribute. We calculated and then compared the three metrics using first, a set of manufactured, pre-determined modules as a preliminary analysis and second, approximately nine thousand functions from the modules of multiple versions of the Barcode system, used previously by Meyers and Binkley in their empirical study. The over-arching message of the research is that a combination of theoretical and empirical analysis can help significantly in comparing the viability and indeed choice of a metric or set of metrics. More specifically, although cohesion is a subjective measure, there are certain properties of a metric that are less desirable than others and it is these 'relative' features that distinguish metrics, make their comparison possible and their value more evident. | en |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartof | International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering | |
dc.subject | metrics | |
dc.subject | slicing | |
dc.title | A theoretical and empirical analysis of three slice-based metrics for cohesion | en |
dc.contributor.institution | School of Computer Science | |
dc.contributor.institution | Science & Technology Research Institute | |
dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | |
rioxxterms.versionofrecord | https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218194010004888 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | |
herts.preservation.rarelyaccessed | true | |