Modularity Index Metrics for Java-Based Open Source Software Projects
This work addresses the need for better modularity assessment in software engineering, particularly for developers and maintainers of Java-based open source projects, but it is incremental as it builds on existing modularity concepts with a new metric.
The paper tackles the problem of measuring modularity in Java-based open source software projects by introducing the Modularity Index, a quantitative metric derived from analyzing traits like size, complexity, cohesion, and coupling across 59 projects, and demonstrates its utility in identifying strengths and potential problems during the evolution of the JFreeChart project.
Open Source Software (OSS) Projects are gaining popularity these days, and they become alternatives in building software system. Despite many failures in these projects, there are some success stories with one of the identified success factors is modularity. This paper presents the first quantitative software metrics to measure modularity level of Java-based OSS Projects called Modularity Index. This software metrics is formulated by analyzing modularity traits such as size, complexity, cohesion, and coupling of 59 Java-based OSS Projects from sourceforge.net using SONAR tool. These OSS Projects are selected since they have been downloaded more than 100K times and believed to have the required modularity trait to be successful. The software metrics related to modularity in class, package and system level of these projects are extracted and analyzed. The similarities found are then analyzed to determine the class quality, package quality, and then combined with system architecture measure to formulate the Modularity Index. The case study of measuring Modularity Index during the evolution of JFreeChart project has shown that this software metrics is able to identify strengths and potential problems of the project.