Assessing Modularity using Co-Change Clusters (Modularity 2014) - Best Paper Award

The traditional modular structure defined by the package hierarchy suffers from the dominant decomposition problem and it is widely accepted that alternative forms of modularization are necessary to increase developer’s productivity. In this paper, we propose an alternative form to understand and assess package modularity based on co-change clusters, which are highly inter-related classes considering co-change relations. We evaluate how co-change clusters relate to the package decomposition of three real-world systems. The results show that the projection of co-change clusters to packages follow different patterns in each system. Therefore, we claim that modular views based on co-change clusters can improve developers’ understanding on how well-modularized are their systems, considering that modularity is the ability to confine changes and evolve components in parallel.

Transcript

1. Assessing Modularity using Co-Change Clusters Luciana Lourdes Silva, Marco Túlio Valente, and Marcelo Maia Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil http://aserg.labsoft.dcc.ufmg.br/ ACM Modularity, Lugano, Switzerland, April 22-25, 2014
2. Motivation Modules should hide important design decisions or decisions that are likely to change [Parnas, 1972] .
3. Motivation A module represents a responsibility assignment. [Parnas, 1972] .
4. Standard Approach to Assess Modularity • Typical cohesion and coupling metrics • Some effects of coupling cannot be captured by structural coupling • Evolutionary view
5. Our Approach • New approach for assessing modularity • Extract co-change graph – Co-change clusters • Distribution maps – Understand and assess package modularity • Similarity analysis
6. Proposed Approach
7. Proposed Approach mapping Co-change Extraction Issue Tracker & VCS Metrics & Views
8. Proposed Approach mapping Co-change Extraction Issue Tracker & VCS Metrics & Views
9. Pre-Processing Tasks #1 – not associated to maintenance issues #2 – not changing classes #3 – merge commits #4 – tangled changes #5 – highly scattered commits
10. #1 – Not Associated to Maintenance issues Commit #10: changes two different maintenance tasks Commit #20 - contains an unfinished task Commit #21 - the rest of the previous task
11. #2 – Not Changing Classes • There are commits that only change artifacts like: – Configuration files; – Documentation; – Script files. • We also eliminate unit testing classes
12. #3 – Merge Commits
13. #4 – Tangled Changes
14. #5 – Highly Scattered Commits
15. Proposed Approach mapping Co-change Extraction Issue Tracker & VCS Metrics & Views
16. Proposed Approach mapping Co-change Extraction Issue Tracker & VCS Metrics & Views
17. Co-Change Graph Class #3 Class #6 Class #7 Class #5 Class #2 Class #4 Class #1 Class #7 1 10 20 6 8 1 1 12 9 Min_Weight = 2 co-changes
18. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Class #3 Class #6 Class #7 Class #5 Class #2 Class #4 Class #1 Class #7 1 10 20 6 8 1 1 12 9
19. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Class #3 Class #6 Class #7 Class #5 Class #2 Class #4 Class #1 Class #7 10 20 6 8 12 9
20. Graph Clustering mapping Co-Change Clusters VCS Issue Reports Chameleon Algorithm
21. Semantic Similarity Analysis Distribution Maps Measure Results Co-change clusters Co-change Graph Issue Reports Commit Proposed Approach
22. Results
23. Target Systems NOP = Number of Packages NOC = Number of Classes LOC = Line of Codes
24. Target Systems NOP = Number of Packages NOC = Number of Classes LOC = Line of Codes
25. Threshold Selection Max_Scattering = 10 packages Min_Weight = 2 co-changes Min_Cluster_Size = 4 classes
26. Pre-Processing Tasks
27. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Min_Weight = 2 co-changes D = Graph Density
28. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Min_Weight = 2 co-changes D = Graph Density
29. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Min_Weight = 2 co-changes D = Graph Density
30. Co-Change Graph Post-Processing Min_Weight = 2 co-changes D = Graph Density
31. #Co-change Clusters NOP = Number of Packages The #clusters is smaller than the #packages
32. Modularity Analysis • Goal: – How co-change clusters can be used to assess the quality of package decompositions? • We rely on distribution maps: – Focus – Spread
33. Distribution Map Focus = 1 Spread = 4
34. Modularity Analysis Geronimo Focus Spread Focus Spread Lucene JDT Core Focus Spread
35. Distribution Map for Geronimo • Clusters well-encapsulated in a single package
36. Distribution Map for Geronimo • Partially encapsulated but touching other packages
37. Distribution Map for Lucene
38. Distribution Map for Lucene • Clusters well-confined in packages (spread = 1)
39. Distribution Map for JDT Core
40. Distribution Map for JDT Core Co-change clusters with crosscutting behavior
41. Distribution Map for JDT Core Partially encapsulated but touching other packages Problem?
42. Summing Up Well Encapsulated Clusters – Geronimo: 45% Crosscutting Clusters – Lucene: 24.5% – JDT Core: 42% Clusters Partially Encapsulated – Suggests a possible ripple effect – Geronimo: 4 clusters, Lucene: 5 clusters
43. Similarity Analysis • Goal: – Improve the understanding of cluster’s meaning. • We rely on: – Pre-processing text – LSA – Latent Semantic Analysis – Cosine similarity
44. Semantic Similarity Analysis Extract Vocabulary Filter Issue Text LSA + Cosine
45. Semantic Similarity Analysis • Spearman Correlation Test Geronimo The higher is the #similarIssues in a cluster, The higher is the focus Lucene The higher is the #similarIssues in a cluster, The lower is the spread
46. Semantic Similarity Analysis • Spearman Correlation Test JDT Core Induces different properties in the clusters, either spread and focus.
47. Conclusion
48. Summary • Method to extract an alternative view • Co-change graphs are sparse • But, co-change clusters are dense – High internal similarity concerning co-changes – Semantic similarity concerning their issue reports – Co-change cluster patterns
49. Further Work • Consider co-change at a finer-granularity level • Include non-source code artifacts • Clusters can be used as an alternative to the Package Explorer?