Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/3403
Title: The effectiveness of refactoring, based on a compatibility testing taxonomy and a dependency graph
Authors: Counsell, S
Hierons, RM
Najjar, R
Loizou, G
Hassoun, Y
Issue Date: 2006
Publisher: IEEE
Citation: IEEE Testing: Academia & Industry Conference - Practice And Research Techniques (TAIC-PART 2006), Windsor, August 2006. pp. 181-190
Abstract: In this paper, we describe and then appraise a testing taxonomy proposed by van Deursen and Moonen (VD&M) based on the post-refactoring repeatability of tests. Four categories of refactoring are identified by VD&M ranging from semantic-preserving to incompatible, where, for the former, no new tests are required and for the latter, a completely new test set has to be developed. In our appraisal of the taxonomy, we heavily stress the need for the inter-dependence of the refactoring categories to be considered when making refactoring decisions and we base that need on a refactoring dependency graph developed as part of the research. We demonstrate that while incompatible refactorings may be harmful and time-consuming from a testing perspective, semantic-preserving refactorings can have equally unpleasant hidden ramifications despite their advantages. In fact, refactorings which fall into neither category have the most interesting properties. We support our results with empirical refactoring data drawn from seven Java open-source systems (OSS) and from the same analysis form a tentative categorization of code smells.
URI: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/3403
Appears in Collections:Computer Science
Dept of Computer Science Research Papers
Software Engineering (B-SERC)

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