An Empirical Study of the

Effect of File Editing Patterns

on Software Quality

Feng Zhang, Foutse Khomh, Ying Zou

and Ahmed E. Hassan

2

Motivation

3

BugzillaTaskEditorPage.java

Frank Steffen Pingel David Green

Concurrent Editing Parallel Editing

Extended Editing Interrupted Editing

Multiple files are edited in parallel by the same developer.

Several developers edit the same file concurrently.

AbstractTaskEditorPage.java

Frank

TasksUiPlugin.java

PlanningPerspectiveFactory.java

DiscoveryViewer.java

4.5 hours

Mylyn Project

1.25 hours

3.6 times

There is a longer idle period during the editing of a file. (threshold: third quantile)

Developers spend longer time editing a file. (threshold: third quantile)

TaskCompareDialog.java

338 hours

Mylyn Project

2 hours

164 times

4

Case Study

Overview of Approach

3,883 logs

2,722 bugs

606 bugs

524 bugs

793 logs

638 logs

Mylyn

Eclipse Platform

PDE Split Date: 2011-01-01

119 developers

98 bugs

2,140 files

5,070 CVS logs

Subject Systems Description of Data

5

Research Questions

6

RQ1: Are there different file editing patterns?

Occurrences of file editing patterns and their interactions

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

1. Concurrent

2. Parallel

3. Extended

4. Interrupted

File editing patterns do exist

Combinations of patterns

Single Pattern

No

Patt

ern

7

RQ2: Risk of single editing pattern (Odds Ratio)

Concurrent Editing Parallel Editing

Extended Editing Interrupted Editing

8

RQ2: Risk by level of involvement (Odds Ratio)

Concurrent Editing Parallel Editing

Extended Editing Interrupted Editing

0

1

2

3

No Pattern ≤3rd quantile > 3rd quantile

2.4* 1.6

* Statistically significant

0

1

2

3

4

5

No Pattern ≤3rd quantile > 3rd quantile

1.3

3.8*

0

1

2

No Pattern ≤3rd quantile > 3rd quantile

1.0

1.9*

0

1

2

No Pattern ≤3rd quantile > 3rd quantile

1.2 1.8*

9

RQ3: Do interactions among file editing patterns lead to more bugs?

Odds ratio of 16 groups.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1. Concurrent

2. Parallel

3. Extended

4. Interrupted

Combinations of patterns are more risky than single pattern

Combinations of patterns

Single Pattern

No

Patt

ern

10

Conclusion

Feng Zhang, Foutse Khomh, Ying Zou, and Ahmed E. Hassan, An Empirical Study of the

Effect of File Editing Patterns on Software Quality, Proceedings of the 19th Working

Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE), October 15-18, 2012, Kingston, Ontario,

Canada. IEEE Computer Society Press.

File Editing Pattern Odds Ratio Average Density of Bug

Concurrent Editing 2.14* 2.46*

Parallel Editing 1.94* 1.67*

Extended Editing 1.86* 2.28*

Interrupted Editing 1.62* 2.10*