The Comment Density of Open Source Software Code

Arafat O, Riehle D (2009)


Publication Type: Conference contribution, Original article

Publication year: 2009

Publisher: IEEE Press

Edited Volumes: 2009 31st International Conference on Software Engineering - Companion Volume, ICSE 2009

City/Town: ..

Pages Range: 195-198

Conference Proceedings Title: In Companion to Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering

Event location: Vancouver, BC

URI: http://dirkriehle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/icse-2009-nier-for-web.pdf

DOI: 10.1109/ICSE-COMPANION.2009.5070980

Abstract

The development processes of open source software are different from traditional closed source development processes. Still, open source software is frequently of high quality. Thus, we are investigating how open source software creates high quality and whether it can maintain this quality for ever larger project sizes. In this paper, we look at one particular quality indicator, the density of comments in open source software code. In a large-scale study of more than 5,000 projects, we find that active open source projects document their source code, and we find that the comment density is independent of team and project size, but not of project age. In future work, we intend to correlate comment density with project success or failure. © 2009 IEEE.

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How to cite

APA:

Arafat, O., & Riehle, D. (2009). The Comment Density of Open Source Software Code. In In Companion to Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering (pp. 195-198). Vancouver, BC: ..: IEEE Press.

MLA:

Arafat, Oliver, and Dirk Riehle. "The Comment Density of Open Source Software Code." Proceedings of the ICSE 2009, Vancouver, BC ..: IEEE Press, 2009. 195-198.

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