A large-scale empirical study on the cognitive complexity of software

Author

Chiew, Vincent ; Wang, Yingxu

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

fYear

2010

fDate

2-5 May 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

There are many measures for software complexities in software engineering. An emerging developer-oriented measure is recently developed known as the cognitive complexity from the field of cognitive informatics and cognitive computing. This paper describes an empirical approach using a Software Cognitive Complexity Analysis Tool (SCCAT) to analyze a comprehensive set of real-world software system programs. Practical and quantifiable results of the cognitive complexity measure are then presented. Additional characteristics of cognitive complexity measure are described that provide insights into human cognition in software engineering.

Keywords

computational complexity; software engineering; SCCAT; cognitive complexity analysis tool; large scale empirical study; software cognitive complexity; software engineering; software system programs; Complexity theory; Humans; Java; Libraries; Software; Software engineering; Software measurement; Software engineering; cognitive complexity; comparative studies; empirical studies; measurement; metics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE), 2010 23rd Canadian Conference on

Conference_Location

Calgary, AB

ISSN

0840-7789

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5376-4

Electronic_ISBN

0840-7789

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CCECE.2010.5575116

Filename

5575116