Software evolution: the lifetime of fine-grained elements

Spinellis, Diomidis; Λουρίδας, Πάνος; Kechagia, Maria

doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.372

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The essence of this change is a "process by which programs are modified and adapted to their changing environment" [3]. At the lowest implementation level, evolution of software depends on modifications to lines of code (LOC) [7]. We use code churn [5] to quantify software evolution [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Kudrjavets,

Thomas,

Nagappan

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Code churn and code velocity describe the evolution of a code base. Current research quantifies and studies code churn and velocity at a high level of abstraction, often at the overall project level or even at the level of an entire company. We argue that such an approach ignores noticeable differences among the subsystems of large projects. We conducted an exploratory study on four BSD family operating systems: DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. We mine 797,879 commits to characterize code churn in terms of the annual growth rate, commit types, change type ratio, and size taxonomy of commits for different subsystems (kernel, non-kernel, and mixed). We also investigate differences among various code review periods, i.e., time-to-first-response, time-to-accept, and time-to-merge, as indicators of code velocity.Our study provides empirical evidence that quantifiable evolutionary code characteristics at a global system scope fail to take into account significant individual differences that exist at a subsystem level. We found that while there exist similarities in the code base growth rate and distribution of commit types (neutral, additive, and subtractive) across BSD subsystems, (a) most commits contain kernel or non-kernel code exclusively, (b) kernel commits are larger than non-kernel commits, and (c) code reviews for kernel code take longer than non-kernel code.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Kudrjavets,

Thomas,

Nagappan

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We quantify software evolution using code churn [7], [8] and code velocity. At the lowest implementation level, code churn consists of modifications to lines of code (LOC) [9]. To quantify the code velocity, we measure the various code review intervals: time-to-first-response, time-to-accept, and time-tomerge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Kudrjavets

Thomas

Nagappan

et al. 2022

2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies on software evolution explore code churn and code velocity at the abstraction level of a company or an entire project. We argue that this approach misses the differences among abstractions layers and subsystems of large projects. We conduct a case study on four BSD family operating systems: DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, to investigate the evolution of code churn and code velocity across kernel and non-kernel code. We mine commits for characteristics such as annual growth rate, commit types, change type ratio, and size taxonomy, indicating code churn. Likewise, we investigate code velocity in terms of code review periods, i.e., time-to-firstresponse, time-to-accept, and time-to-merge.Our study provides evidence that software evolves differently at abstraction layers: kernel and non-kernel. The study finds similarities in the code base growth rate and distribution of commit types (neutral, additive, and subtractive) across BSD subsystems, however, (a) most commits contain either kernel or non-kernel code, (b) kernel commits are larger than non-kernel commits, and (c) code reviews for kernel code take longer than non-kernel code.

show abstract

Software evolution: the lifetime of fine-grained elements

Cited by 2 publications

References 81 publications

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Is Kernel Code Different From Non-Kernel Code? A Case Study of BSD Family Operating Systems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About