Software evolvability and maintainability: a literatutre review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32870/recibe.v14i1.404Keywords:
Evolvability, Maintainability, Software quality, systematics literature review, Thematic synthesis.Abstract
When evolvability or maintainability are not considered during software development, the outcome may yield high costs and long modification hours, with an impact on the final quality and customer satisfaction. These two quality attributes contribute in considering future changes not only in requirements but also in environment and technology. A systematic literature review and a thematic synthesis were performed in order to determine the current state of evolvability and maintainability research. The search and selection processes were performed with IEEEXplore, ACM, Springer and ScienceDirect databases, obtaining a total of 37 primary studies. The thematic synthesis, in turn, allowed identifying leading themes or topics related to evolvability and maintainability. The results helped to determine that research is scarce. Although several authors provide definitions for both attributes along with subattributes, features and even metrics, the only artefact that is taken into account is code. The most frequently mentioned metrics were Maintainability Index, Lines of Code, Cyclomatic Complexity y Coupling Between Objects.References
Brcina R, Bode S, Riebisch M (2009) Optimisation process for maintaining evolvability during software evolution. 2009 16th Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshop on the Engineering of Computer Based Systems, 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1109/ECBS.2009.20
Cruzes, D. S., & Dyba, T. (2011). Recommended steps for thematic synthesis in software engineering. International symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement, 275-284. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2011.36
Gartner, W., Deming. W., Naughton, M., Gitlow, H. S. (1988).The Deming Theory of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 13:138, https://doi.org/10.2307/2583562
IEEE (1990) IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology, IEEE Std 610.12-1990, 1-84, https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEESTD.1990.101064.
Kitchenham B. A., Budgen D., Brereton P (2015) Evidence-Based Software Engineering and Systematic Reviews, CRC Press
Kuhrmann M, Fernández DM, Daneva M (2017) On the pragmatic design of literature studies in software engineering: an experience-based guideline. Empirical Software Engineering, 22:2852–2891 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9492-y
Wagey, B. C., Hendradjaya, B., & Mardiyanto, M. S. (2015). A proposal of software maintainability model using code smell measurement. 2015 International Conference on Data and Software Engineering, 25-30. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICODSE.2015.7436966
