The challenge of software complexity

Abstract

Given the interdisciplinary nature of complex network studies, there is a practical need for dialogue between theorists proposing graph measurements and those seeking to apply them into a domain. We consider this in the domain of software complexity by highlighting the distinctive nature of networks representing software’s internal structure and also by describing the application of one such proposal, the offdiagonal complexity, against two examples of software. The results showed the promise of using complex networks to measure software complexity but also demonstrated the confounding effects of size. Based on that application we make proposals to improve the dialogue between theory and experiment.