Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Barriers to Modularity - An Empirical Study to Assess the Potential for Modularisation of Java Programs

  • Conference paper
Research into Practice – Reality and Gaps (QoSA 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6093))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

To deal with the challenges when building large and complex systems modularisation techniques such as component-based software engineering and aspect-oriented programming have been developed. In the Java space these include dependency injection frameworks and dynamic component models such as OSGi. The question arises as to how easy it will be to transform existing systems to take advantage of these new techniques. Anecdotal evidence from industry suggests that the presence of certain patterns presents barriers to refactoring of monolithic systems into a modular architecture. In this paper, we present such a set of patterns and analyse a large set of open-source systems for occurrences of these patterns. We use a novel, scalable static analyser that we have developed for this purpose.

The key findings of this paper are that almost all programs investigated have a significant number of these patterns, implying that modularising will be therefore difficult and expensive.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. The eclipse project, http://www.eclipse.org/

  2. Java specification requests, http://jcp.org/en/jsr/overview

  3. JDepend dependency analyser, http://clarkware.com/software/JDepend.html

  4. OSGiTM- the dynamic module system for java, http://www.osgi.org/

  5. Project jigsaw, http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/

  6. Spring dynamic modules for OSGiTMservice platforms, http://www.springsource.org/osgi

  7. Mvel expression language (2009), http://mvel.codehaus.org/

  8. Baxter, G., Frean, M., Noble, J., Rickerby, M., Smith, H., Visser, M., Melton, H., Tempero, E.: Understanding the shape of Java software. In: Proceedings OOPSLA 2006, pp. 397–412 (October 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Beyer, D., Noack, A., Lewerentz, C.: Efficient relational calculation for software analysis. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) 31(2), 137–149 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Chidamber, S.R., Kemerer, C.F.: A metrics suite for object oriented design. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 20(6), 476–493 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Copeland, T.: PMD Applied. Centennial Books (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Dietrich, J., Yakovlev, V., McCartin, C., Jenson, G., Duchrow, M.: Cluster analysis of java dependency graphs. In: SoftVis 2008, pp. 91–94 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Fowler, M.: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. Addison-Wesley, Boston (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Fowler, M.: Inversion of control containers and the dependency injection pattern (2004), http://martinfowler.com/articles/injection.html

  15. Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., Vlissides, J.: Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software. Addison-Wesley, Boston (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Garcia, J., Popescu, D., Edwards, G., Medvidovic, N.: Identifying architectural bad smells, pp. 255–258. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Gil, J.Y., Maman, I.: Micro patterns in Java code. In: Proceedings OOPSLA 2005, pp. 97–116. ACM Press, New York (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Girvan, M., Newman, M.E.: Community structure in social and biological networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99(12), 7821–7826 (2002)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. He, H., Singh, A.K.: Graphs-at-a-time: Query language and access methods for graph databases. In: Proceedings SIGMOD 2008, pp. 405–418 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Hovemeyer, D., Pugh, W.: Finding bugs is easy. In: Proceedings OOPSLA 2004, pp. 132–136. ACM, New York (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Humble, C.: IBM, BEA and JBoss adopting OSGi, http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/02/osgi_jee

  22. Jagadish, H.V., Lakshmanan, L.V.S., Srivastava, D., Thompson, K.: Tax: A tree algebra for xml. In: Ghelli, G., Grahne, G. (eds.) DBPL 2001. LNCS, vol. 2397, pp. 149–164. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Koenig, A.: Patterns and antipatterns. JOOP 8(1), 46–48 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lippert, M., Roock, S.: Refactoring in Large Software Projects: Performing Complex Restructurings Successfully. Wiley, Chichester (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Melton, H., Tempero, E.: An empirical study of cycles among classes in Java. Empirical Software Engineering 12(4), 389–415 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Müller, H., Orgun, M., Tilley, S., Uhl, J.: A reverse-engineering approach to subsystem structure identification. Journal of Software Maintenance: Research and Practice 5, 181–204 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Muschevici, R., Potanin, A., Tempero, E., Noble, J.: Multiple dispatch in practice. In: Proceedings OOPSLA 2008, October 2008, pp. 563–582 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Nord, R.L., Tomayko, J.E.: Software architecture-centric methods and agile development. IEEE Software 23(2), 47–53 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. O’Madadhain, J., Fisher, D., White, S., Boey, Y.-B.: The jung (java universal network/graph) framework. Technical Report UCI-ICS 03-17, University of California, Irvine (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Prud’hommeaux, E., Seaborne, A.: SPARQL Query Language for RDF. Technical report, W3C (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Qualitas Research Group. Qualitas corpus version 20080312. The University of Auckland (March 2008), http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ewan/corpus

  32. Sangal, N., Jordan, E., Sinha, V., Jackson, D.: Using dependency models to manage software architecture. In: Proceedings OOPSLA 2005, pp. 164–165. ACM, New York (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  33. Schwanke, R.W.: An intelligent tool for re-engineering software modularity. In: Proceedings ICSE 1991, pp. 83–92 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Singer, J., Brown, G., Lujan, M., Pocock, A., Yiapanis, P.: Fundamental nano-patterns to characterize and classify java methods. In: Proceedings LDTA 2009 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Taibi, T. (ed.): Design Patterns Formalization Techniques. Idea Group Inc., Hershey (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Tempero, E.: An empirical study of unused design decisions in open-source Java software. In: Proceedings APSEC 2008, December 2008, pp. 33–40 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Tempero, E., Noble, J., Melton, H.: How do java programs use inheritance? an empirical study of inheritance in java software. In: Vitek, J. (ed.) ECOOP 2008. LNCS, vol. 5142, pp. 667–691. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  38. Tessier, J.: Dependency finder, http://depfind.sourceforge.net/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Jens Dietrich, Catherine McCartin & Syed M. Ali Shah

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Ewan Tempero

Authors
  1. Jens Dietrich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Catherine McCartin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ewan Tempero
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Syed M. Ali Shah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, 01609, Worcester, MA, USA

    George T. Heineman

  2. Faculty of Mathematics and Physiscs, Charles University in Prague, Malostranske namesti 25, 118 00, Praha 1, Czech Republic

    Jan Kofron

  3. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, Malostranske namesti 25, 11800, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Frantisek Plasil

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Dietrich, J., McCartin, C., Tempero, E., Shah, S.M.A. (2010). Barriers to Modularity - An Empirical Study to Assess the Potential for Modularisation of Java Programs. In: Heineman, G.T., Kofron, J., Plasil, F. (eds) Research into Practice – Reality and Gaps. QoSA 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6093. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13821-8_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13821-8_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13820-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13821-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation