Another possible bias is the nature of the classes analyzed. The
most complex classes were the GUI and the generation engine,
which is in line with the objective of the project to add a GUI on a
code and documentation generation tool. Zhou et al. [19] point
out that the classes with the highest LOC and WMC are strong
indicators of future maintenance challenges. Their nature as GUI
classes is therefore not critical as their complexity makes them
potential future challenges.
Another issue is the relatively small number of lines of code
within the 42 implemented classes of the project. Around four
thousands lines of code were implemented for this project. It is
important to remember that this is a reuse-driven project. The total
LOC for the whole project, including classes reused, is about
fourteen thousands LOC, as shown in Table 1. Developers had to
read and understand most of these LOC. This project was not
limited to plugging their GUI in an independent library; they had
to study the source code of the library to adapt the existing
content with their implementation.
Despite potential limitations, the observations made in this study
do show the various discrepancies that may exist between design
artifact and implemented source code and stress the impacts of the
origin of the implemented classes.