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Software refactoring is the activity associated with developers changing the internal structure of source code without modifying its external behavior. The literature argues that refactoring might have beneficial and harmful implications for software maintainability, primarily when performed without the support of automated tools. This paper continues the narrative on the effects of refactoring by exploring the dimension of program comprehension, namely the property that describes how easy it is for developers to understand source code. We start our investigation by assessing the basic unit of program comprehension, namely program readability. Next, we set up a large-scale empirical investigation — conducted on 156 open-source projects — to quantify the impact of refactoring on program readability. First, we mine refactoring data and, for each commit involving a refactoring, we compute (i) the amount and type(s) of refactoring actions performed and (ii) eight state-of-the-art program comprehension metrics. Afterwards, we build statistical models relating the various refactoring operations to each of the readability metrics considered to quantify the extent to which each refactoring impacts the metrics in either a positive or negative manner. The key results are that refactoring has a notable impact on most of the readability metrics considered.

Nel presente volume si proverà ad indicare cosa si intende per transizione alla fragilità. Verranno analiticamente presentate le 62 diadi, oggetto della rilevazione empirica, così come emergono dalle ricche interviste diadiche condotte, nelle quali si è riusciti a dare parola ad entrambi i membri, focalizzandosi essenzialmente su tre aspetti della relazio-ne diadica: a. La modalità di affrontare la transizione; b. Il livello di integrazione nella rete primaria (familiare e amicale) e nelle reti di comu-nità (associativa e istituzionale); c. La qualità del legame diadico. A partire da questi diversi profili di diadi, si cercherà di rispondere a tre quesiti di ricerca, dal nostro punto di vista decisivi, per comprendere la transizione e immaginare risposte e policy sempre più attente alle morfogenesi in atto in questi anni. Inoltre, particolare attenzione, sarà riservata all’impatto che ha avuto la pandemia sulle diadi incontrate per comprendere quali effetti si siano prodotti e, se, e in che misura ab-bia agito come acceleratore della condizione di fragilità e di decadimento complessivo.

Code smells are sub-optimal implementation choices applied by developers that have the effect of negatively impacting, among others, the change-proneness of the affected classes. Based on this consideration, in this paper we conjecture that code smell-related information can be effectively exploited to improve the performance of change prediction models, i.e., models having the goal of indicating which classes are more likely to change in the future. We exploit the so-called intensity index—a previously defined metric that captures the severity of a code smell—and evaluate its contribution when added as additional feature in the context of three state of the art change prediction models based on product, process, and developer-based features. We also compare the performance achieved by the proposed model with a model based on previously defined antipattern metrics, a set of indicators computed considering the history of code smells in files. Our results report that (i) the prediction performance of the intensity-including models is statistically better than the baselines and, (ii) the intensity is a better predictor than antipattern metrics. We observed some orthogonality between the set of change-prone and non-change-prone classes correctly classified by the models relying on intensity and antipattern metrics: for this reason, we also devise and evaluate a smell-aware combined change prediction model including product, process, developer-based, and smell-related features. We show that the F-Measure of this model is notably higher than other models.

Family and social intergenerational relationships have experienced a major morphogenetic change following the significant socio-demographic transformations brought about by the mechanisms of natural variations in population (birth and death rates). These transformations have led to the formation of smaller families – i.e. having fewer family members –, which are characterized by the simultaneous presence of more than one generation – multigenerational families, made up of three or more generations, are the so-called beanpole families (Dykstra, 2010) – and have relatively few horizontal (intragenerational) relationships and numerous vertical (intergenerational) relationships (Saraceno, 2008). We aim to examine this morphogenesis from a generational standpoint (Boccacin, 2005), whose heuristic significance is represented by a (both structural and cultural) multidimensionality of the relationships between generations and, in particular, of the symbolic meaning generated through them and transmitted within the family and society. This paper also focuses on solidarity between generations by discussing the well-known Bengtson’s and Roberts’ paradigm (1991), which was later revisited from a relational perspective by Silverstein and Bengtson (1997). Elements of risk in intergenerational relationships that are not being considered in most postmodern analyses and reflections will also be emphasized. Conversely, relationships between generations are not immune from ambivalence (Lüscher, 2011) and can therefore be either generative or degenerative (thus generating relational goods or evils). Results from recent surveys conducted by our research team can eloquently exemplify the concepts presented in this chapter.