Modelling and measuring code smells in enterprise applications using TISM and two-way assessment

Code smells are the faults in design that reduces the code maintainability. It is essential to identify and control these code smells during the design and development stages of enterprise application implementation in order to achieve higher code maintainability and quality. This research paper presents a framework that engages in modelling and measuring various code smells so that practitioners can focus their efforts on most critical code smells and thus achieve higher code maintainability and quality. The framework uses Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) for modelling and structuring various code smells. TISM helps in identifying Interrelationship among these code smells. Using MICMAC analysis, these code smells are classified into four clusters based on their driving power and dependence power. Two-way assessment helps in measuring the code smells by deriving the utility measure based on the expert opinion of two set of stakeholders. An experiment is conducted on an enterprise application project and code smells are measured using two-way assessment. It is demonstrated that the code smells having high driving power are optimized which resulted in the elevation of the overall code maintainability of the enterprise applications. The proposed framework optimizes the process of enhancing the overall code maintainability by identification of most critical code smells having higher driving power and then optimizing them.