A notional understanding of the relationship between code readability and software complexity
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Department/School
Information Security and Applied Computing
Publication Title
Information
Abstract
Code readability and software complexity are considered essential components of software quality. They significantly impact software metrics, such as reusability and maintenance. The maintainability process consumes a high percentage of the software lifecycle cost, which is considered a very costly phase and should be given more focus and attention. For this reason, the importance of code readability and software complexity is addressed by considering the most time-consuming component in all software maintenance activities. This paper empirically studies the relationship between code readability and software complexity using various readability and complexity metrics and machine learning algorithms. The results are derived from an analysis dataset containing roughly 12,180 Java files, 25 readability features, and several complexity metric variables. Our study empirically shows how these two attributes affect each other. The code readability affects software complexity with 90.15% effectiveness using a decision tree classifier. In addition, the impact of software complexity on the readability of code using the decision tree classifier has a 90.01% prediction accuracy.
Link to Published Version
Recommended Citation
Tashtoush, Y., Abu-El-Rub, N., Darwish, O., Al-Eidi, S., Darweesh, D., & Karajeh, O. (2023). A notional understanding of the relationship between code readability and software complexity. Information, 14(2), 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/info14020081
Comments
O. Darwish is a faculty member in EMU's School of Information Security and Applied Computing.