An Empirical Study on the Evolution of Design Smells

Lerina Aversano,Umberto Carpenito,Martina Iammarino

doi:10.3390/info11070348

Abstract

The evolution of software systems often leads to its architectural degradation due to the presence of design problems. In the literature, design smells have been defined as indicators of such problems. In particular, the presence of design smells could indicate the use of constructs that are harmful to system maintenance activities. In this work, an investigation on the nature and presence of design smells has been performed. An empirical study has been conducted considering the complete history of eight software systems, commit by commit. The detection of instances of multiple design smell types has been performed at each commit, and the analysis of the relationships between the detected smells and the maintenance activities, specifically due to refactoring activities, has been investigated. The proposed study evidenced that classes affected by design smells are more subject to change, especially when multiple smells are detected in the same classes. Moreover, it emerged that in some cases these smells are removed, and this occurs involving more smells at the same time. Finally, results indicate that smells removals are not correlated to the refactoring activities.

Highlights

A usually discussed issue in software evolution is the tradeoff between short-term and long-term goals
This paper proposes an empirical study conducted on the evolution history of eight software systems, analyzing 17,252 commits
In literature, based on the extent of the impact caused by smell, smells can be divided into three main categories: code smell, architectural smell, and design smell

Summary

Introduction

A usually discussed issue in software evolution is the tradeoff between short-term and long-term goals. Design violations taken to deliver fast might delay future development, compromising software maintainability, and evolution. There are numerous researches about design problems and their impact on software project evolution, highlighting that these problems increase the cost of change over time until software becomes almost un-maintainable. The presence of design smells could indicate the use of constructs that are harmful to system maintenance activities. The presence of design problems and incorrect constructions can negatively affect the main features of the software, such as the comprehensibility, testability, extensibility, reusability, and maintainability of the software [5]. Architectural smells and code smells are indicators of bad code or design that can lead to quality problems, such as breakdowns, technical debt, or difficulties in maintenance and evolution

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