TY - GEN
T1 - Inheritance software metrics on smart contracts
AU - Sai, Ashish Rajendra
AU - Holmes, Conor
AU - Buckley, Jim
AU - Le Gear, Andre
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
PY - 2020/7/13
Y1 - 2020/7/13
N2 - Blockchain systems have gained substantial traction recently, partlydue to the potential of decentralized immutable mediation of economic activities. Ethereum is a prominent example that has theprovision for executing stateful computing scripts known as SmartContracts. These smart contracts resemble traditional programs, butwith immutability being the core differentiating factor. Given theirimmutability and potential high monetary value, it becomes imperative to develop high-quality smart contracts. Software metricshave traditionally been an essential tool in determining programming quality. Given the similarity between smart contracts (writtenin Solidity for Ethereum) and object-oriented (OO) programming,OO metrics would appear applicable. In this paper, we empiricallyevaluate inheritance-based metrics as applied to smart contracts.We adopt this focus because, traditionally, inheritance has beenlinked to a more complex codebase which we posit is not the casewith Solidity based smart contracts. In this work, we evaluate thehypothesis that, due to the differences in the context of smart contracts and OO programs, it may not be appropriate to use the sameinterpretation of inheritance based metrics for assessment.
AB - Blockchain systems have gained substantial traction recently, partlydue to the potential of decentralized immutable mediation of economic activities. Ethereum is a prominent example that has theprovision for executing stateful computing scripts known as SmartContracts. These smart contracts resemble traditional programs, butwith immutability being the core differentiating factor. Given theirimmutability and potential high monetary value, it becomes imperative to develop high-quality smart contracts. Software metricshave traditionally been an essential tool in determining programming quality. Given the similarity between smart contracts (writtenin Solidity for Ethereum) and object-oriented (OO) programming,OO metrics would appear applicable. In this paper, we empiricallyevaluate inheritance-based metrics as applied to smart contracts.We adopt this focus because, traditionally, inheritance has beenlinked to a more complex codebase which we posit is not the casewith Solidity based smart contracts. In this work, we evaluate thehypothesis that, due to the differences in the context of smart contracts and OO programs, it may not be appropriate to use the sameinterpretation of inheritance based metrics for assessment.
KW - Complexity
KW - Inheritance
KW - Smart contracts
KW - Software metrics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091893010&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3387904.3389284
DO - 10.1145/3387904.3389284
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85091893010
T3 - IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension
SP - 381
EP - 385
BT - Proceedings - 2020 IEEE/ACM 28th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2020
PB - IEEE Computer Society
T2 - 28th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2020, collocated with the 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2020
Y2 - 13 July 2020 through 15 July 2020
ER -