Experimental assessment of software metrics using automated refactoring

Abstract

A large number of software metrics have been proposed in the literature, but there is little understanding of how these metrics relate to one another. We propose a novel experimental technique, based on search-based refactoring, to assess software metrics and to explore relationships between them. Our goal is not to improve the program being refactored, but to assess the software metrics that guide the auto- mated refactoring through repeated refactoring experiments.