Analyzing Exceptional Interfaces on Evolving Frameworks

Abstract

Software frameworks are constantly evolving, either by the introduction of new product features, bug fixes or new technology adoption. During the evolution of a framework, new exceptional conditions arise, requiring that exception handling strategies be constantly revisited. However, introducing exception handling changes in a software framework project is far from trivial. Exception handling elements are usually scattered through the system and changing them may have a ripple impact not only on the components of the framework, but also on a whole family of systems build based on the framework. Thus, continuous and proactive exception handling design analysis plays a key role in order to achieve success during software evolution. This paper presents our preliminary results on analyzing exceptional interfaces on evolving frameworks. Exceptional interface is defined as a list of possible exception types raised by a module. We analyzed two mainstream Java open-source frameworks, revealing: (i) the strategies adopted by framework developers regarding exceptional interfaces, and (ii) how basic properties of exceptional interfaces evolved during framework evolution.