Sixth International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE'03)
The Chaos of Software Development
Helsinki, Finland
September 01-September 02
ISBN: 0-7695-1903-2
In this paper we present a new perspective on the problem of complexity in software, using sound mathematical concepts from information theory such as Shannon?s Entropy [31]. We study the complexity of the development process by examining the logs of the source control repository for large software projects. We hypothesize that the process of developing code is a good indicator of the current and future problems in the code and the project. A complex process will have negative affects on its outcome, such as producing a complex system or delaying releases. We validate our work by studying the evolution of six large open source projects (three operating systems, a window manager, an office productivity suite, and a database).