Mining software repositories for software metrics (MSR-SM): Conceptual framework

Abstract

A number of software metrics estimate the complexity of software program by a couple of substantial software attributes and trends. Metric for measuring the reliability is extraordinary among the presently available complexity metrics by contemplating a non-physical attributes i.e. readability. Readability may be a key quality attribute for managing software source codes. Readability of the source code is mainly concerned with code maintainability which is a significant characteristic of software quality, mainly from the developers’ perspective. As the code is readable, the easier it is to modify, lesser errors, copious maintainable, easy to reuse and even more reliable. Readability is employed to enhance source codes for subsequent maintenance and extensibility. But code readability is not simply computable while dealing with open source software as contributors access the code and modify its structure according to his/her style of coding. This nature of development begins problems for the new contributors to understand the code structure. To enhance code readability, In this paper, we proposed a conceptual model of mining software repositories for software metrics in which we proposed a set of metrics for readability of the code that is easier to use and helpful to understand the code structure. We also mention a mechanism to validate the proposed metrics by the data extracted from the mining software repositories and comparing it with a survey conducting from experts working in industries.