John R. Talburt

An empirical study of object-oriented system evolution

Abstract Software metrics have been used to measure software artifacts statically—measurements are taken after the artifacts are created. In this study, three metrics—System Design Instability (SDI), Class Implementation Instability (CII), and System Implementation Instability (SII)—are used for the purpose of measuring object-oriented (OO) software evolution. The metrics are used to track the evolution of an OO system in an empirical study. We found that once an OO project starts, the metrics can give good indications of project progress, e.g. how mature the design and implementation is. This information can be used to adjust the project plan in real time. We also performed a study of design instability that examines how the implementation of a class can affect its design. This study determines that some aspects of OO design are independent of implementation, while other aspects are dependent on implementation.

Text data mining: a case study

A vast amount of data is available on the World Wide Web. Many companies have started to mine this data to augment datasets used in production. This paper presents an industry study for one such text data mining. The study and analysis of the extracted data from the World Wide Web could be used to help improve products and services. A prototype has been completed and benched marked in the laboratory.

Automatic extraction and visualization of object-oriented software design metrics

Software visualization is a graphical representation of software characteristics and behavior. Certain modes of software visualization can be useful in isolating problems and identifying unanticipated behavior. In this paper we present a new approach to aid understanding of object- oriented software through 3D visualization of software metrics that can be extracted from the design phase of software development. The focus of the paper is a metric extraction method and a new collection of glyphs for multi- dimensional metric visualization. Our approach utilize the extensibility interface of a popular CASE tool to access and automatically extract the metrics from Unified Modeling Language class diagrams. Following the extraction of the design metrics, 3D visualization of these metrics are generated for each class in the design, utilizing intuitively meaningful 3D glyphs that are representative of the ensemble of metrics. Extraction and visualization of design metrics can aid software developers in the early study and understanding of design complexity.