Feature Evolution and Reuse -- An Exploratory Study of Eclipse

TL;DR

This study investigates how feature reuse influences the evolution of the Eclipse software ecosystem, revealing patterns and extent of reuse across multiple releases to understand its impact on system growth and quality.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into feature reuse practices and their effects on software evolution in a large open-source project, filling gaps in existing literature.

Findings

Significant feature reuse observed across Eclipse releases

Patterns of reuse vary between major and minor releases

Reuse contributes to system growth while maintaining quality

Abstract

One of the purported ways to increase productivity and reduce development time is to reuse existing features and modules. If reuse is adopted, logically then, it will have a direct impact on a system's evolution. However, the evidence in the literature is not clear on the extent to which reuse is practiced in real-world projects, nor how it is practiced. In this paper we report the results of an investigation of reuse and evolution of software features in one of the largest open-source ecosystems - Eclipse. Eclipse provides a leading example of how a system can grow dramatically in size and number of features while maintaining its quality. Our results demonstrate the extent of feature reuse and evolution and also patterns of reuse across ten different Eclipse releases (from Europa to Neon).