SpringerLink
Log in

Zones of Pain: Visualising the Relationship Between Software Architecture and Defects

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1266))

  • 1342 Accesses

Abstract

Substantial development time is devoted to software maintenance and testing. As development resources are usually finite, there is a risk that some components receive insufficient effort for thorough testing. Architectural complexity (e.g. tight coupling) can make effective testing particularly challenging. Software components with high architectural complexity are more likely be defect–prone. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between established architectural attributes and defect–proneness. We used the architectural attributes: abstractness, instability and distance to measure the architectural complexity of software components. We investigated the ability of these attributes to discriminate between defective and non-defective components on four open source systems. We visualised defect–proneness by plotting architectural complexity and defectiveness using Martin’s ‘Zones of Pain’. Our results show that architecture has an inconsistent impact on defect–proneness. Some architecturally complex components seem immune to defects in some projects. In other projects architecturally complex components significantly suffer from defects. Where architectural complexity does increase defect–proneness the impact is strong. We recommend practitioners monitor the architectural complexity of their software components over time by visualising potential defect–proneness using Martin’s Zones of Pain.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
EUR 29.95
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
EUR 42.79
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
EUR 53.49
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/lancsunise/JavaMetrics.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/lancsunise/quatic20_replication.

References

  1. Abreu, F.B.: The mood metrics set. In: proceedings of ECOOP, vol. 95, p. 267 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ahmed, I., Gopinath, R., Brindescu, C., Groce, A., Jensen, C.: Can testedness be effectively measured? In: Proceedings of the 2016 24th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, pp. 547–558 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Almugrin, S., Albattah, W., Alaql, O., Alzahrani, M., Melton, A.: Instability and abstractness metrics based on responsibility. In: 2014 IEEE 38th Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference, pp. 364–373. IEEE (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Almugrin, S., Albattah, W., Melton, A.: Using indirect coupling metrics to predict package maintainability and testability. J. Syst. Softw. 121, 298–310 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bach, T., Andrzejak, A., Pannemans, R., Lo, D.: The impact of coverage on bug density in a large industrial software project. In: Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), pp. 307–313. IEEE (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bavota, G., Qusef, A., Oliveto, R., De Lucia, A., Binkley, D.: Are test smells really harmful? An empirical study. Empirical Softw. Eng. 20(4), 1052–1094 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chidamber, S.R., Kemerer, C.F.: A metrics suite for object oriented design. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 20(6), 476–493 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Elish, M.O., Al-Yafei, A.H., Al-Mulhem, M.: Empirical comparison of three metrics suites for fault prediction in packages of object-oriented systems: A case study of eclipse. Adv. Eng. Softw. 42(10), 852–859 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Gamma, E.: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-oriented Software. Pearson Education, India (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hall, T., Zhang, M., Bowes, D., Sun, Y.: Some code smells have a significant but small effect on faults. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. (TOSEM) 23(4), 1–39 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Izurieta, C., Bieman, J.M.: Testing consequences of grime buildup in object oriented design patterns. In: 2008 1st International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation, pp. 171–179 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Jaafar, F., Guéhéneuc, Y.-G., Hamel, S., Khomh, F., Zulkernine, M.: Evaluating the impact of design pattern and anti-pattern dependencies on changes and faults. Empirical Softw. Eng. 21(3), 896–931 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-015-9361-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Khomh, F., Di Penta, M., Guéhéneuc, Y.G., Antoniol, G.: An exploratory study of the impact of antipatterns on class change-and fault-proneness. Empirical Softw. Eng. 17(3), 243–275 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Martin, R.C.: Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Śliwerski, J., Zimmermann, T., Zeller, A.: When do changes induce fixes? In: Proceedings of the 2005 International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2005, pp. 1–5. ACM, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partly funded by a grant from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant number: EP/S005730/1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Jean Petrić, Tracy Hall & David Bowes

Authors
  1. Jean Petrić
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tracy Hall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. David Bowes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jean Petrić , Tracy Hall or David Bowes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Brunel University, London, UK

    Martin Shepperd

  2. Lisbon University Institute, Lisbon, Portugal

    Fernando Brito e Abreu

  3. University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Alberto Rodrigues da Silva

  4. University of Castilla-La Mancha, Talavera de la Reina, Spain

    Ricardo Pérez-Castillo

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Petrić, J., Hall, T., Bowes, D. (2020). Zones of Pain: Visualising the Relationship Between Software Architecture and Defects. In: Shepperd, M., Brito e Abreu, F., Rodrigues da Silva, A., Pérez-Castillo, R. (eds) Quality of Information and Communications Technology. QUATIC 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1266. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58793-2_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58793-2_11

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58792-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58793-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation