A Framework Profile of .NET

Status

To appear in Proceedings of WCRE 2011

Authors

Ralf Lämmel, Rufus Linke, Ekaterina Pek, and Andrei Varanovich

Abstract

We develop a basic form of framework comprehension which is based on simple, reuse-related metrics for the as-implemented design and usage of frameworks. To this end, we provide a framework profile which incorporates potential reuse characteristics (e.g., specializability of types in a framework) as well as actual reuse characteristics (e.g., evidence of specialization of framework types in projects). We apply framework comprehension in an empirical study of the Microsoft .NET Framework. The approach is helpful in several contexts of software reverse and re-engineering.

Keywords

framework, .NET, framework design, framework usage, framework profile, reuse, type specialization, late binding, polymorphism, inheritance, program comprehension, software metrics, dynamic program analysis.

Bibtex entry

@inproceedings{LaemmelLPV11,
  author    = {Ralf L{\"a}mmel and Rufus Linke and Ekaterina Pek and
Andrei Varanovich},
  title     = "{A Framework Profile of .NET}",
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2011 18th Working Conference on Reverse
Engineering, WCRE '11},
  year      = {2011},
  publisher = "IEEE",
  note      = "10 pages"
}

Downloads and links

• Conference paper: [.pdf]
• Paper version with appendix: [.pdf]
• Related diploma thesis: [.pdf]

The appendix contains additional data. This appendix may change without further notice.
The Diploma Thesis by R. Linke contains additional details, e.g., details of implementation.