A controlled experiment for assessing the contribution of design pattern documentation on software maintenance

Authors:
Giuseppe Scanniello;Carmine Gravino;Michele Risi;Genoveffa Tortora
Affiliations:
University of Basilicata, Italy;University of Salerno, Italy;University of Salerno, Italy;University of Salerno, Italy
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Year:
2010

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Abstract

In this paper we present the preliminary results of a controlled experiment to assess the contribution provided by the design patterns on the maintenance of source code. In particular, the study aimed at assessing the effort and the efficiency to perform maintenance operations in case design pattern instances are properly documented and provided to the maintainer. The context of the experiment is constituted of Master Students in Computer Science at the University of Basilicata. The preliminary analysis conducted on the gathered data revealed that the effort is significantly reduced in case design pattern instances are properly documented and provided to the subjects. Similarly, the efficiency is significantly better in case the documentation of design pattern instances is used to accomplish maintenance operations.