Paper Info
Title
On Computing the Canonical Features of Software Systems
Abstract
Software applications typically have many features that vary in their similarity. We define a measurement of similarity between pairs of features based on their underlying implementations and use this measurement to compute a set of canonical features. The Canonical Features Set (CFS) consists of a small number of features that are as dissimilar as possible to each other, yet are most representative of the features that are not in the CFS. The members of the CFS are distinguishing features and understanding their implementation provides the engineer with an overview of the system undergoing scrutiny. The members of the CFS can also be used as cluster centroids to partition the entire set of features. Partitioning the set of features can simplify the understanding of large and complex software systems. Additionally, when a specific feature must undergo maintenance, it is helpful to know which features are most closely related to it. We demonstrate the utility of our method through the analysis of the Jext, Firefox, and Gaim software systems.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1109/WCRE.2006.39
WCRE
Keywords
Field
DocType
canonical feature,cluster centroid,gaim software system,software application,entire set,complex software system,underlying implementation,canonical features set,small number,software systems,specific feature,software system,software engineering
Data mining,Software design description,Computer science,Software system,Theoretical computer science,Component-based software engineering,Software metric,Software visualization,Software construction,Software sizing,Software development
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1095-1350
0-7695-2719-1
15
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.72
11
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jay Kothari1442.82
Trip Denton21078.47
Spiros Mancoridis388856.82
A. Shokoufandeh4135688.63