Evaluation of software understandability using rough sets

Abstract

Understandability is one of the important characteristics of software quality, because it may influence the maintainability of the software. Cost and reuse of the software is also affected by understandability. In order to maintain the software, the programmers need to properly understand the source code. The understandability of the source code depends upon the psychological complexity of the software, and it requires cognitive abilities to understand the source code. The understandability of source code is getting affected by so many factors. In this paper, we have taken different factors in an integrated view. We have chosen rough set approach to calculate the understandability based on outlier detection. Generally, the outlier is having an abnormal behavior. Here, we have taken that outlier may be easily understandable or difficult to understand. Here, we have taken a few factors, which affect understandability, and bring forward an integrated view to determine understandability.