The Automatic Detection of Concept Assignment Changes in Evolving Source Code (Position Paper)

Software evolution can increase the difficulty of comprehending source code. The decrease in comprehensibility can result from a breakdown in the coherence of concepts (e.g. business rules) within the code. If this breakdown in coherence could be predicted or observed automatically, this information could be used to trigger preventative maintenance. This paper presents the position that given a framework to characterise types of concept change during evolution, these changes can be automatically detected by a suitable method. Automatic detection would enable the framework to become a useful software management tool for controlling software maintenance costs in relation to comprehension .