JExtract: An Eclipse Plug-in for Recommending Automated Extract Method Refactorings
This addresses the problem of improving program comprehension for software developers by providing more effective automated refactoring recommendations, though it is incremental as it builds on existing tools.
The authors tackled the underuse of Extract Method refactoring tools by developing JExtract, an Eclipse plug-in that recommends automated refactoring opportunities based on structural similarity, and found it to be far more effective in recall and precision than the state-of-the-art tool JDeodorant.
Although Extract Method is a key refactoring for improving program comprehension, refactoring tools for such purpose are often underused. To address this shortcoming, we present JExtract, a recommendation system based on structural similarity that identifies Extract Method refactoring opportunities that are directly automated by IDE-based refactoring tools. Our evaluation suggests that JExtract is far more effective (w.r.t. recall and precision) to identify misplaced code in methods than JDeodorant, a state-of-the-art tool