Empirical Studies of Object-oriented Design

Object-oriented (OO) technology has been accepted by both academia and industry in a very short time. This title presents work that reflects the shift from students to real programmers and from studies of individual programmers to the study of software development teams. It also includes the results of laboratory and field studies of OO design.

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Object-oriented (OO) technology has been accepted by both academia and industry in a very short time. Ten years ago, the few OO languages available were seen as interesting ideas. Since then, new languages have been designed, and existing languages have been extended to become OO. Given the rapid acceptance of this new technology, it is imperative to understand the process and to evaluate the benefits of OO design. The psychology of programming field has matured to take on this task.

The work presented in this special issue reflects the shift from students to real programmers and from studies of individual programmers to the study of software development teams. At the same time, the focus of the studies has moved from programming tasks -- coding and debugging -- to more upstream activities such as design, analysis, communication, and team organization. Five empirical studies plus a concluding commentary in this issue present the results of laboratory and field studies of OO design. The studies all have limitations on the generalizability of their results, but the editors believe that together they provide a significant attempt to evaluate the claims made about OO design. More generally, they provide strong insights about the design activity both at an individual level and at a group level.