Assessing cognitive complexity in Java-based Object-Oriented systems: Metrics and tool support

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Date

2016

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Slovak Academy of Sciences

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Computer Engineering
(1998)
The Atılım University Department of Computer Engineering was founded in 1998. The department curriculum is prepared in a way that meets the demands for knowledge and skills after graduation, and is subject to periodical reviews and updates in line with international standards. Our Department offers education in many fields of expertise, such as software development, hardware systems, data structures, computer networks, artificial intelligence, machine learning, image processing, natural language processing, object based design, information security, and cloud computing. The education offered by our department is based on practical approaches, with modern laboratories, projects and internship programs. The undergraduate program at our department was accredited in 2014 by the Association of Evaluation and Accreditation of Engineering Programs (MÜDEK) and was granted the label EUR-ACE, valid through Europe. In addition to the undergraduate program, our department offers thesis or non-thesis graduate degree programs (MS).

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Abstract

Software cognitive complexity refers to how demanding the mental process of performing tasks such as coding, testing, debugging, or modifying source code is. Achieving low levels of cognitive complexity is crucial for ensuring high levels of software maintainability, which is one of the most rewardful software quality attributes. Therefore, in order to control and ensure software maintainability, it is first necessary to accurately quantify software cognitive complexity. In this line, this paper presents a software metric to assess cognitive complexity in Object-Oriented (OO) systems, and particularly those developed in the Java language, which is very popular among OO programming languages. The proposed metric is based on a characterization of basic control structures present in Java systems. Several algorithms to compute the metric and their materialization in the Eclipse IDE are also introduced. Finally, a theoretical validation of the metric against a framework specially designed to validate software complexity metrics is presented, and the applicability of the tool is shown by illustrating the metric in the context of ten real world Java projects and relevant metrics from the well-known Chidamber-Kemerer metric suite.

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Keywords

Basic control structures, CK metric suite, Java, Software cognitive complexity

Turkish CoHE Thesis Center URL

Citation

14

WoS Q

Q4

Scopus Q

Q4

Source

Computing and Informatics

Volume

35

Issue

3

Start Page

497

End Page

527

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14411/9459

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Scopus