article

An empirical study of cycles among classes in Java

Authors:

Hayden Melton,

Ewan TemperoAuthors Info & Claims

Empirical Software Engineering, Volume 12, Issue 4

Pages 389 - 415

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-006-9033-1

Published: 01 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Advocates of the design principle avoid cyclic dependencies among modules have argued that cycles are detrimental to software quality attributes such as understandability, testability, reusability, buildability and maintainability, yet folklore suggests such cycles are common in real object-oriented systems. In this paper we present the first significant empirical study of cycles among the classes of 78 open- and closed-source Java applications. We find that, of the applications comprising enough classes to support such a cycle, about 45% have a cycle involving at least 100 classes and around 10% have a cycle involving at least 1,000 classes. We present further empirical evidence to support the contention these cycles are not due to intrinsic interdependencies between particular classes in a domain. Finally, we attempt to gauge the strength of connection among the classes in a cycle using the concept of a minimum edge feedback set .

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Cited By

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Drosos GSotiropoulos TSpinellis DMitropoulos D(2024)Bloat beneath Python’s Scales: A Fine-Grained Inter-Project Dependency AnalysisProceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering10.1145/36608211:FSE(2584-2607)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2024
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Feng QLiu SJi HMa XLiang P(2024)An empirical study of untangling patterns of two-class dependency cyclesEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-023-10438-029:2Online publication date: 12-Mar-2024
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Index Terms

An empirical study of cycles among classes in Java
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Software implementation planning
        Software design techniques
    2. Software development process management
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Classes and objects
        Modules / packages
      2. Language types

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Reviews

Reviewer: Alexandre Bergel

The presence of cycling dependencies in object-oriented (OO) programs, despite a wealth of well-thought-out recommendations and books about good software engineering practices, is hardly a controversial fact. This paper presents a careful analysis on cycles in software programs. As argued by Melton and Tempero, these cycles may be huge, involving more than 1,000 classes. The analysis involves 78 applications that vary in size, domain, origin, and development mode; therefore, the presented results are likely to have general applicability. How such a situation occurred is the natural question that follows the reading. Criteria that favor cycles are probably innumerable; I mention but some: degree of openness in the development, the way changes and fixes are elected to be incorporated into a mainstream line, and the presence of quality assessment tools. This last criterion is critical since programmers have little feedback on whether a change or a fix has increased or reduced cycles, and a 1,000-class cycle can certainly not be the subject of consideration by a single programmer. This is a good paper. It demonstrates that software engineering is a difficult task, and efforts to produce a quality development environment should be maintained, if not increased. Online Computing Reviews Service

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cover image Empirical Software Engineering

Empirical Software Engineering Volume 12, Issue 4

August 2007

115 pages

ISSN:1382-3256

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Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

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Published: 01 August 2007

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660821
Feng QLiu SJi HMa XLiang P(2024)An empirical study of untangling patterns of two-class dependency cyclesEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-023-10438-029:2Online publication date: 12-Mar-2024
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Ding YZhang YYuan GJiang SDai W(2023)Progress on class integration test order generation approachesInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107133156:COnline publication date: 1-Apr-2023
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