thestructuralcomplexityofsoftware.docVIP

The Structural Complexity of Software:An Experimental Test David P. Darcy 4351 Van Munching Hall Robert H. Smith School of Business University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Phone 301-405-4900 E-mail: ddarcy@rhsmith.umd.edu Chris F. Kemerer 278A Mervis Hall Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Phone 412-648-1572 E-mail: ckemerer@katz.pitt.edu Sandra A. Slaughter 354 Posner Hall David A. Tepper School of Business Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: 412-268-2308 E-mail: sandras@andrew.cmu.edu James E. Tomayko 4624 Wean Hall School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: 412-268-2338 E-mail: jet@cs.cmu.edu July 11, 2005 Keywords—Software complexity, software structure, task complexity, coupling, cohesion, experiment. The Structural Complexity of Software:An Experimental Test Abstract This research examines the structural complexity of software, and specifically the potential interaction of the two dominant dimensions of structural complexity, coupling and cohesion. Analysis based on an information processing view of developer cognition results in a theoretically-driven model with cohesion as a moderator for a main effect of coupling on effort. An empirical test of the model was devised in a software maintenance context utilizing both procedural and object-oriented tasks, with professional software engineers as participants. The results support the model in that there was a significant interaction effect between coupling and cohesion on effort, even though there was no main effect for either coupling or cohesion. The implication of this result is that when designing, implementing, and maintaining software to control complexity, both coupling and cohesion should be considered jointly, instead of independently. By providing guidance on structuring software for software professionals and researchers, these results enable software to continue a