Documenting design patterns in code eases program maintenance
Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: Software design patterns are a promising idea with many advocates. While subjective reports of their usefulness are available, scientific proof is still missing. We consider the case of programmers using design pattern documentation (in the form of comments in the source program) during maintenance. Is such pattern documentation (PD) helpful for understanding a program more quickly and designing better solutions for given maintenance tasks? We describe a controlled experiment for investigating this question, present its results, and conclude that design pattern documentation can speed up program changes as well as improve their quality. 1 Background Design patterns [3] are a promising approach to simplifying the design and construction as well as the understanding and evolution of software systems. Design patterns are prepackaged design solutions on the level of a few classes ("micro architectures"). They provide a solution approach for a class of problems. Besides the solution(s), de...
DOI: 10.5445/ir/138897
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W70755156