Abstract
Database access is in the core of many software systems. When building an object-oriented system with a relational backend, a common approach is to use an object-to-relational mapping component to make the relational database oblivious to the application programmer.
Self-configuring database queries is a way to reduce the effect of internal dependencies within a software. To assess its usability, we organized a randomized, controlled study for software engineering students, who were given a number of maintenance tasks on a sample software with two versions: the first one using transparent persistency as a control group and the second using self-configuring queries.
Although the attendees in both groups used equal time in completing the tasks, it turned out that the group using self-configuring queries outperformed the control group in code quality by a factor of three. This gives us evidence to believe that self-configuration in a software’s architecture can be beneficial for maintainability.
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Pohjalainen, P. (2013). An Experiment on Self-configuring Database Queries. In: Filipe, J., Maciaszek, L.A. (eds) Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering. ENASE 2013. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 417. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54092-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54092-9_3
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