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Interpreting Shared Information Content in Software Engineering: What Does It Mean to Say Two Artefacts Are Similar and Why?

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Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology (ICHIT 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7425))

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Abstract

Recent work has examined software evolution in terms of shared information content between artefacts representative of releases. These studies employ measurements based on the non-trivial concept of Kolmogorov complexity to calculate the quantity of shared information and have shown some of the promise of this characterisation of software evolution.

At the same time, however, questions and enquiries related to this work have shown that interpreting the results requires some care. What does it mean to say that two software artefacts are “similar” in an information theoretic sense? What does shared information content mean in a software engineering context?

Starting from questions that could be asked by software engineers about the results of this method, this paper will provide answers by reviewing and referring back to the underlying mathematics. It is hoped that this will serve both to dispel myths but also to encourage interest, curiosity and critique.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Ireland

    Tom Arbuckle

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  1. Tom Arbuckle
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Computer Engineering, Hannam University, Korea

    Geuk Lee

  2. Computer Science and Information System, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Daniel Howard

  3. Department of Information and Communication, Dong Seoul University, 423 Bokjeong-Dong, Sujeong-Gu, Seongnam, Gyunggi, Korea

    Jeong Jin Kang

  4. Institute of Mathematics, University of Warsaw, ul. Banacha 2, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland

    Dominik Ślęzak

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Arbuckle, T. (2012). Interpreting Shared Information Content in Software Engineering: What Does It Mean to Say Two Artefacts Are Similar and Why?. In: Lee, G., Howard, D., Kang, J.J., Ślęzak, D. (eds) Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology. ICHIT 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7425. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32645-5_79

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32645-5_79

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32644-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32645-5

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