Empirical Study of Phased Model of Software Change

TL;DR

This paper empirically evaluates the Phased Model for Software Change (PMSC) supported by the JRipples tool, showing significant time reductions in software modification tasks for programmers with PMSC knowledge.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that PMSC, combined with JRipples, improves efficiency in software change tasks for programmers with varying experience.

Findings

Programmers with PMSC and JRipples perform changes in about half the time.

Significant reductions in code comprehension and implementation effort.

Enhanced process model accelerates software maintenance tasks.

Abstract

Software change is the basic task of software evolution and maintenance. Phased Model for Software Change (PMSC) is a process model for software changes that localize in the code. It consists of several phases that cover both program comprehension and code modifications. This paper presents an empirical study of an enactment of PMSC, enhanced by the use of tool JRipples. The subjects are graduate students with varying degree of programming experience. The empirical findings demonstrate that programmers with knowledge of PMSC and supported by JRipples perform perfective software changes in unfamiliar software in significantly less time (about half time) than unaided programmers. Substantial time improvements were witnessed in both code comprehension and implementation efforts.