Controlling the complexity of software designs

Author

Lieberherr, Karl J.

Author_Institution

Center for Software Sci., Northeastern Univ., Boston, MA, USA

fYear

2004

fDate

23-28 May 2004

Firstpage

2

Lastpage

11

Abstract

Our research has focused on identifying techniques to develop software that is amenable to refactoring and change. The Law of Demeter (LoD) was one contribution in this effort. But it led to other problems. With the current state of the art focused on aspect-oriented software development (AOSD), it is useful to revisit the general objectives of the LoD and adapt it to the new ideas. Hence we introduce the Law of Demeter for Concerns and discuss the important intersection of these approaches with traversals. We explore the ramifications of the Laws of Demeter (LoD and LoDC) to achieve better separation of concerns through improved software processes. They are supported by language mechanisms that are implemented using novel applications of automata theory.

Keywords

automata theory; object-oriented programming; software metrics; software process improvement; AOSD; Law of Demeter for Concerns; LoD; LoDC; aspect-oriented software development; automata theory; language mechanisms; separation of concerns; software design complexity; software processes; software refactoring; Application software; Automata; Educational institutions; Encapsulation; Information science; Object oriented modeling; Programming; Software design; Software engineering;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Software Engineering, 2004. ICSE 2004. Proceedings. 26th International Conference on

ISSN

0270-5257

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2163-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSE.2004.1317408

Filename

1317408