Year: 2008
Type: preprint
Abstract: Dependencies between types in object-oriented software can be viewed as directed graphs, with types as nodes and dependencies as edges. The in-degree and out-degree distributions of such graphs have quite different forms, with the former resembling a power-law distribution and the latter an exponential distribution. This effect appears to be independent of application or type relationship. A simple generative model is proposed to explore the proposition that the difference arises because the programmer is aware of the out-degree of a type but not of its in-degree. The model reproduces the two distributions, and compares reasonably well to those observed in 14 different type relationships across 12 different Java applications.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Baxter, G. J., Frean, M. R.
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1862723880