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An Initial Study on the Association Between Architectural Smells and Degradation

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Software Architecture (ECSA 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 12292))

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Abstract

It is generally assumed that architectural smells are associated with software architectural degradation. Treating smells could hence help treating degradation. This article investigates the association between three types of architectural smells and the existence of architecture-violating dependencies as manifestation of architectural degradation in software.

We gathered data about architectural smells and violations from a single system with a validated prescriptive architecture. The data was analysed to identify and characterise associations between architectural smells and violations. Statistically relevant associations were identified for two of three smells, namely cyclic dependencies and unstable dependencies. Effect sizes were small for both though.

These results provide evidence for cyclic and unstable dependencies having a larger risk of including architectural violations. The small effect sizes indicate that the presence of architectural smells cannot explain architectural degradation alone. This shows that complementing methods and techniques are required for exhaustive treatment of both phenomena.

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Notes

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Karlstad University, 651 88, Karlstad, Sweden

    Sebastian Herold

Authors
  1. Sebastian Herold
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Herold .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Koninklijke Philips N.V., Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Anton Jansen

  2. VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ivano Malavolta

  3. University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy

    Henry Muccini

  4. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA, USA

    Ipek Ozkaya

  5. University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland, Rapperswil, Switzerland

    Olaf Zimmermann

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Herold, S. (2020). An Initial Study on the Association Between Architectural Smells and Degradation. In: Jansen, A., Malavolta, I., Muccini, H., Ozkaya, I., Zimmermann, O. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12292. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58923-3_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58923-3_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58922-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58923-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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