Measuring Program Comprehension: A Large-Scale Field Study with Professionals
Msr2010 mc intosh
1. The Evolution of ANT Build Systems
Shane McIntosh, Bram Adams, Ahmed E. Hassan
Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab (SAIL)
Queen's University
Kingston, Canada
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Research Questions
RQ1) Do source code and ANT build systems
co-evolve?
Initial work suggests make build systems
co-evolve with C source code
RQ2) Does the perceived build-time complexity
evolve?
Intuition suggests so
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Two perspectives for studying
build systems
Build System
Static
(Code Analysis)
Dynamic
(Log Analysis)
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RQ1) Do source code and ANT
build systems co-evolve?
Growth and reduction periods in build system
and source code often coincide
Periods where this doesn't happen are often
due to the same development event
Suggests source code and ANT build
systems co-evolve
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RQ2) Does the perceived build-
time complexity evolve?
Build length increases over time
Build depth also increases
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Other Findings
Halstead complexity of build system highly
correlated with SBLOC
Eclipse build system growing exponentially
(due to exponential growth in plugins)