Active Files As a Measure of Software Maintainability. Schulte, L., Sajnani, H., & Czerwonka, J. In Companion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering, of ICSE Companion 2014, pages 34--43, New York, NY, USA, 2014. ACM.
Active Files As a Measure of Software Maintainability [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
In this paper, we explore the set of source files which are changed unusually often. We define these files as active files. Although discovery of active files relies only on version history and defect classification, the simple concept of active files can deliver key insights into software development activities. Active files can help focus code reviews, implement targeted testing, show areas for potential merge conflicts and identify areas that are central for program comprehension. In an empirical study of six large software systems within Microsoft ranging from products to services, we found that active files constitute only between 2-8% of the total system size, contribute 20-40% of system file changes, and are responsible for 60-90% of all defects. Not only this, but we establish that the majority, 65-95%, of the active files are architectural hub files which change due to feature addition as opposed to fixing defects.
@inproceedings{ schulte_active_2014,
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  series = {{ICSE} {Companion} 2014},
  title = {Active {Files} {As} a {Measure} of {Software} {Maintainability}},
  isbn = {978-1-4503-2768-8},
  url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2591062.2591176},
  doi = {10.1145/2591062.2591176},
  abstract = {In this paper, we explore the set of source files which are changed unusually often. We define these files as active files. Although discovery of active files relies only on version history and defect classification, the simple concept of active files can deliver key insights into software development activities. Active files can help focus code reviews, implement targeted testing, show areas for potential merge conflicts and identify areas that are central for program comprehension.   In an empirical study of six large software systems within Microsoft ranging from products to services, we found that active files constitute only between 2-8% of the total system size, contribute 20-40% of system file changes, and are responsible for 60-90% of all defects. Not only this, but we establish that the majority, 65-95%, of the active files are architectural hub files which change due to feature addition as opposed to fixing defects.},
  urldate = {2014-07-22TZ},
  booktitle = {Companion {Proceedings} of the 36th {International} {Conference} on {Software} {Engineering}},
  publisher = {ACM},
  author = {Schulte, Lukas and Sajnani, Hitesh and Czerwonka, Jacek},
  year = {2014},
  keywords = {Maintainability, Software metrics, _done, _naming_fault_as_defect_model, active file, risk, source file change, technical debt},
  pages = {34--43}
}

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