Paper Info
Title
Does the Choice of Configuration Framework Matter for Developers? Empirical Study on 11 Java Configuration Frameworks
Abstract
Configuration frameworks are routinely used in software systems to change application behavior without recompilation. Selecting a suitable configuration framework among the vast variety of existing choices is a crucial decision for developers, as it can impact project reliability and its maintenance profile. In this paper, we analyze almost 2,000 Java projects on GitHub to investigate the features and properties of 11 major Java configuration frameworks. We analyze the popularity of the frameworks and try to identify links between the maintenance effort involved with the usage of these frameworks and the frameworks' properties. More basic frameworks turn out to be the most popular, but in half of the cases are complemented by more complex frameworks. Furthermore, younger, more active frameworks with more detailed documentation, support for hierarchical configuration models and/or more data formats seem to require more maintenance by client developers.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1109/SCAM.2017.25
2017 IEEE 17th International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM)
Keywords
Field
DocType
configuration framework matter,empirical study,software systems,application behavior,project reliability,maintenance profile,maintenance effort,hierarchical configuration models,Java configuration frameworks,Java projects,GitHub
Programming language,Software engineering,Computer science,Popularity,Software system,Real-time computing,Documentation,Java,Empirical research,Maintenance engineering
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1942-5430
978-1-5386-3239-0
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
21
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Mohammed Sayagh1442.54
Zhen Dong2425.25
Artur Andrzejak324527.47
Bram Adams483855.92