Managing clones using dynamic change tracking and resolution: helping developers to cope with changing clone fragments

By many, code cloning is nowadays recognized as a threat to the maintainability of source code. Many clone detection strategies have been proposed and a considerable number of removal strategies, mostly based on refactoring techniques, has been shown. However, recent research has showed that clones can often not be removed easily and other strategies, based on clone management need to be developed. In this thesis, a clone management strategy based on dynamic inferring of clone relations based on monitored clipboard activity is described. A tool is introduced that is able to track live changes to clones and offers several resolution strategies for inconsistently modified clones. The adequacy, usability and effectiveness of this Eclipse plug-in have been studied in an experiment, the results of which show that developers actually do see the added value of such a tool but have very strict requirements with respect to its usability.

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