Software Maintainability: Systematic Literature Review and Current Trends

Abstract

Software maintenance is an expensive activity that consumes a major portion of the cost of the total project. Various activities carried out during maintenance include the addition of new features, deletion of obsolete code, correction of errors, etc. Software maintainability means the ease with which these operations can be carried out. If the maintainability can be measured in early phases of the software development, it helps in better planning and optimum resource utilization. Measurement of design properties such as coupling, cohesion, etc. in early phases of development often leads us to derive the corresponding maintainability with the help of prediction models. In this paper, we performed a systematic review of the existing studies related to software maintainability from January 1991 to October 2015. In total, 96 primary studies were identified out of which 47 studies were from journals, 36 from conference proceedings and 13 from others. All studies were compiled in structured form and analyzed through numerous perspectives such as the use of design metrics, prediction model, tools, data sources, prediction accuracy, etc. According to the review results, we found that the use of machine learning algorithms in predicting maintainability has increased since 2005. The use of evolutionary algorithms has also begun in related sub-fields since 2010. We have observed that design metrics is still the most favored option to capture the characteristics of any given software before deploying it further in prediction model for determining the corresponding software maintainability. A significant increase in the use of public dataset for making the prediction models has also been observed and in this regard two public datasets User Interface Management System (UIMS) and Quality Evaluation System (QUES) proposed by Li and Henry is quite popular among researchers. Although machine learning algorithms are still the most popular methods, however, we suggest that researchers working on software maintainability area should experiment on the use of open source datasets with hybrid algorithms. In this regard, more empirical studies are also required to be conducted on a large number of datasets so that a generalized theory could be made. The current paper will be beneficial for practitioners, researchers and developers as they can use these models and metrics for creating benchmark and standards. Findings of this extensive review would also be useful for novices in the field of software maintainability as it not only provides explicit definitions, but also lays a foundation for further research by providing a quick link to all important studies in the said field. Finally, this study also compiles current trends, emerging sub-fields and identifies various opportunities of future research in the field of software maintainability.