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A Computerized Functional Skills Assessment and Training Program Targeting Technology Based Everyday Functional Skills
Published on: February 13, 2020
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How do Android developers improve non-functional properties of software?
James Callan1, Oliver Krauss2, Justyna Petke1
1University College London, London, UK.
Empirical Software Engineering
|June 6, 2022
Summary
Mobile developers rarely improve app performance, but these changes occur throughout development. Optimizing code often involves deleting code or increasing concurrency, sometimes sacrificing memory.
Area of Science:
- Software Engineering
- Mobile Computing
- Performance Optimization
Background:
- Mobile app developers face increasing pressure to optimize non-functional properties (NFPs) like speed and bandwidth.
- Poor performance leads to user dissatisfaction and app abandonment.
- Automated software improvement techniques are less prevalent and their effectiveness in the mobile domain is uncertain.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how developers improve mobile app performance (execution time, memory, bandwidth, frame rate).
- To categorize commits related to non-functional property improvements.
- To inform the enhancement of automated software improvement techniques for mobile applications.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 100 Android repositories, examining 74,408 commits.
- Categorization of 560 identified non-functional property (NFP) improving commits.
- Development of a classifier to aid in analyzing NFP improving commits.
Main Results:
- NFP-improving commits are rare but distributed across the development lifecycle.
- Memory consumption is often traded for improved execution time or bandwidth.
- Code deletion is a common strategy, while increased concurrency is key for frame rate improvements.
- Similar code changes can enhance multiple NFPs simultaneously.
Conclusions:
- Automated mobile software improvement can benefit from incorporating SQL query optimization, caching, and asset manipulation.
- A developed classifier can significantly reduce the manual effort required for analyzing NFP-improving commits.
- Understanding developer practices provides insights for creating more effective automated optimization tools.
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