Elegant object-oriented software design via interactive, evolutionary computation

Simons, Christopher L.; Parmee, Ian C.; Simons, Chris; Parmee, Ian

Abstract

Design is fundamental to software development but can be demanding to perform. Thus, to assist the software designer, evolutionary computing is being increasingly applied using machine-based, quantitative fitness functions to evolve software designs. However, in nature, elegance and symmetry play a crucial role in the reproductive fitness of various organisms. In addition, subjective evaluation has also been exploited in interactive evolutionary computation (IEC). Therefore, to investigate the role of elegance and symmetry in software design, four novel elegance measures are proposed which are based on the evenness of distribution of design elements. In controlled experiments in a dynamic IEC environment, designers are presented with visualizations of object-oriented software designs, which they rank according to a subjective assessment of elegance. For three out of the four elegance measures proposed, it is found that a significant correlation exists between elegance values and reward elicited. These three elegance measures assess the evenness of distribution of 1) attributes and methods among classes; 2) external couples between classes; and 3) the ratio of attributes to methods. It is concluded that symmetrical elegance is in some way significant in software design, and that this can be exploited in dynamic, multiobjective IEC to produce elegant software designs. © 1998-2012 IEEE.

Citation

Parmee, I. C., Simons, C. L., Simons, C., & Parmee, I. (2012). Elegant object-oriented software design via interactive, evolutionary computation. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews, 42(6), 1797-1805. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMCC.2012.2225103

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Jan 3, 2013
• Journal: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part C: Applications and Reviews
• Print ISSN: 1094-6977
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1797-1805
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMCC.2012.2225103
• Keywords: elegance, interactive evolutionary computation, software design
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/941084
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TSMCC.2012.2225103