A dynamic model of software product generative process

Concas G;MARCHESI, MICHELE;PINNA, SANDRO;TONELLI, ROBERTO;TURNU, IVANA

2008-01-01

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Abstract

We analyze the process of software development for large, object oriented, open source software systems. Such systems may be described as complex networks when suitable variables are properly identified. In particular we model the system growth through a Yule process which enable us to fit data extracted from freely available repositories. We consider quantities related to relevant properties of the software system itself, like methods names, instance variable names, number of subclasses of each class. As opposite to a plain analysis of a final product, we perform a dynamic analysis of the product evolution, since we look at how system properties change during the development along different releases. The final goal is to detect statistical features that may be related to software dependability.