Abstract
In the software engineering literature, many works claim that the use of design patterns improves the com-prehensibility of programs and, more generally, their maintainability. Yet, little work attempted to study the impact of design patterns on the developers' tasks of program comprehension and modification. We design and perform an experiment to collect data on the impact of the Visitor pattern on comprehension and modification tasks with class diagrams. We use an eye-tracker to register saccades and fixations, the latter representing the focus of the developers' attention. Collected data show that the Visitor pattern plays a role in maintenance tasks: class diagrams with its canonical representation requires less efforts from developers.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Empirical Software Enginneering & Measurement, Florida (USA) Octobre 2009 |
Subtitle of host publication | ESEM 2009 |
Publisher | James Miller and Rick Selby |
Pages | 69-78 |
Number of pages | 10 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781424448418 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 28 Dec 2009 |
Event | 2009 3rd International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2009 - Lake Buena Vista, FL, United States Duration: 15 Oct 2009 → 16 Oct 2009 |
Conference
Conference | 2009 3rd International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2009 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Lake Buena Vista, FL |
Period | 15/10/09 → 16/10/09 |