Refactoring is certainly one of the most widespread practices used by developers to improve software quality. During the last two decades, it has been the subject of an increasing number of research studies. But how much do we know about the trends, and the appearance of new topics, in the research field of refactoring? What have researchers found about its application since the time of its first introduction? In this work we provide a preliminary analysis of the state of the art and the evolution of the research on refactoring. We attempt to represent the actual body of knowledge in this field through the analysis of its cognitive structure, leveraging science mapping methodology to focus on the most relevant concepts in this research area. We model the body of knowledge by mining bibliographic databases and by retrieving the co-occurrence of keywords. We have found that some different general themes can be recognized, but not all of them have the same role and equally catalyzed researchers' interest. In addition, we provide a preliminary analysis on the trends and directions as well as the hot topics we identified in the refactoring research field.

Orru', M., Porru, S., Marchesi, M., Tonelli, R. (2015). The evolution of knowledge in the refactoring research field. In ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. Association for Computing Machinery [10.1145/2764979.2764989].

The evolution of knowledge in the refactoring research field

Orru', M;
2015

Abstract

Refactoring is certainly one of the most widespread practices used by developers to improve software quality. During the last two decades, it has been the subject of an increasing number of research studies. But how much do we know about the trends, and the appearance of new topics, in the research field of refactoring? What have researchers found about its application since the time of its first introduction? In this work we provide a preliminary analysis of the state of the art and the evolution of the research on refactoring. We attempt to represent the actual body of knowledge in this field through the analysis of its cognitive structure, leveraging science mapping methodology to focus on the most relevant concepts in this research area. We model the body of knowledge by mining bibliographic databases and by retrieving the co-occurrence of keywords. We have found that some different general themes can be recognized, but not all of them have the same role and equally catalyzed researchers' interest. In addition, we provide a preliminary analysis on the trends and directions as well as the hot topics we identified in the refactoring research field.
paper
Bibliographic network; Refactoring; Science mapping;
English
16th International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2015 25-29 May
2015
ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
978-145033409-9
2015
25-29-May-2015
a10
none
Orru', M., Porru, S., Marchesi, M., Tonelli, R. (2015). The evolution of knowledge in the refactoring research field. In ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. Association for Computing Machinery [10.1145/2764979.2764989].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/302137
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