scholarly journals An empirically-based characterization and quantification of information seeking through mailing lists during Open Source developers’ software evolution

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaironi Y. Sharif ◽  
Michael English ◽  
Nour Ali ◽  
Chris Exton ◽  
J.J. Collins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Software Evolution ◽  
Mailing Lists

scholarly journals Internal Quality Evolution of Open-Source Software Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5690
Author(s):  
Mamdouh Alenezi
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Evolution ◽  
Quality Metrics ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Software Metric ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Relationship

The evolution of software is necessary for the success of software systems. Studying the evolution of software and understanding it is a vocal topic of study in software engineering. One of the primary concepts of software evolution is that the internal quality of a software system declines when it evolves. In this paper, the method of evolution of the internal quality of object-oriented open-source software systems has been examined by applying a software metric approach. More specifically, we analyze how software systems evolve over versions regarding size and the relationship between size and different internal quality metrics. The results and observations of this research include: (i) there is a significant difference between different systems concerning the LOC variable (ii) there is a significant correlation between all pairwise comparisons of internal quality metrics, and (iii) the effect of complexity and inheritance on the LOC was positive and significant, while the effect of Coupling and Cohesion was not significant.

scholarly journals The Information Practices of Physical Science Librarians Differ from Those of the Scientific Community: More Research is Needed to Characterize Specific Information Seeking and Use

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Perryman
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Personal Communication ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Research Dissemination ◽  
Mailing Lists

A Review of: Brown, Cecilia M. and Ortega, Lina. “Information-Seeking Behavior of Physical Science Librarians: Does Research Inform Practice?” College & Research Libraries (2005). 66:231-47. Objective – As part of a larger study exploring the information environments of physical science librarians (Ortega & Brown), the authors’ overall objective for this study is to profile physical science librarians’ information behaviours. The authors’ two-part hypothesis was that first, peer-reviewed journals would be preferred over all other sources for research dissemination, resembling the preferences of scientists, and second, that peer-to-peer consultation would predominate for practice-oriented decisions. Design – Mixed methods: survey questionnaire followed by citation and content analysis. Setting – Five internationally disseminated professional association electronic mailing lists whose readership comprised those with interests in science librarianship: the American Library Association (ALA) Science and Technology Section; the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST) Science and Technology Information Special Interest Group; the Special Library Association (SLA) Chemistry Division and its Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division; and the American Geological Institute Geoscience Information Society. Subjects – Seventy-two physical science librarians voluntarily responding to an online survey. Methods – A questionnaire was distributed to inquire about physical science librarians’ professional reading practices as well as their perceptions about the applicability of research to their work. Participants were asked to rank preferences among 11 resource types as sources supporting daily business, including personal communication, conference attendance, electronic mailing lists, and scholarly journals. Differences between the mean rankings of preferences were tested for significance by applying the Friedman test with p>0.0005. Journals identified most frequently were analyzed using the Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI) Web of Science index and Ulrich’s Periodical Index to measure proportions of research and non-research citations, as well as the general topic areas covered by the journals. Next, content analysis was performed for the years 1995, 1997, and 2000 in order to characterize research methodologies used in the previously identified journals according to a previously tested schema (Buscha & Harter). Results from this portion of the study were compared with participants’ responses about journal usage. Main Results – Librarians reported using personal communication (both face-to-face and electronic mailing lists) more frequently as a means of information gathering than professional journals, Web sites, conferences, trade publications, monographs, or ‘other’ resources. Variations in responses appeared to correlate with years in the profession and in the respondents’ time in their current positions, although there are indications that the importance of all information resources to practice and research declines over time. The relative importance of resources is also shown in time spent reading journal literature, less than 5 hours per week for 86% of participants. Conclusion – For the first hypothesis, the authors found that unlike scientists, survey participants did not prefer research publications as vehicles for dissemination of their research results. For the second, librarians ranked peer-reviewed journals third in preference after personal communication and electronic mailing lists as sources of information supporting daily practice, supporting the second hypothesis that respondents would emulate the information use practices of mathematicians.

Applicability of Lehman Laws on Open Source Evolution

2015 ◽  
pp. 199-224
Author(s):  
Nisha Ratti ◽  
Parminder Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Real World ◽  
Software Maintenance ◽  
Software Evolution ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
User Requirements ◽  
Continuous Change ◽  
Essential Characteristic ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Object Oriented Metrics

Software evolution is the essential characteristic of the real world software as the user requirements changes software needs to change otherwise it becomes less useful. In order to be used for longer time period, software needs to evolve. The software evolution can be a result of software maintenance. In this chapter, a study has been conducted on 10 versions of GLE (Graphics Layout Engine) and FGS (Flight Gear Simulator) evolved over the period of eight years. An effort is made to find the applicability of Lehman Laws on different releases of two softwares developed in C++ using Object Oriented metrics. The laws of continuous change, growth and complexity are found applicable according to data collected.

scholarly journals Understanding the Causes of Architecture Changes Using OSS Mailing Lists

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (09n10) ◽  
pp. 1633-1651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ding ◽  
Peng Liang ◽  
Antony Tang ◽  
Hans van Vliet
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Functional Requirement ◽  
Quality Requirement ◽  
External Quality ◽  
Mailing Lists

The causes of architecture changes can tell about why architecture changes, and this knowledge can be captured to prevent architecture knowledge vaporization and architecture degeneration. But the causes are not always known, especially in open source software (OSS) development. This makes it very hard to understand the underlying reasons for the architecture changes and design appropriate modifications. Architecture information is communicated in development mailing lists of OSS projects. To explore the possibility of identifying and understanding the causes of architecture changes, we conducted an empirical study to analyze architecture information (i.e. architectural threads) communicated in the development mailing lists of two popular OSS projects: Hibernate and ArgoUML, verified architecture changes with source code, and identified the causes of architecture changes from the communicated architecture information. The main findings of this study are: (1) architecture information communicated in OSS mailing lists does lead to architecture changes in code; (2) the major cause for architecture changes in both Hibernate and ArgoUML is preventative changes, and the causes of architecture changes are further classified to functional requirement, external quality requirement, and internal quality requirement using the coding techniques of grounded theory; (3) more than 45% of architecture changes in both projects happened before the first stable version was released.

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