Tool support for executable documentation of Java class hierarchies

While object-oriented programming offers great solutions for today's software developers, this success has created difficult problems in class documentation and testing. In Java, two tools provide assistance: Javadoc allows class interface documentation to be embedded as code comments and JUnit supports unit testing by providing assert constructs and a test framework. This paper describes JUnitDoc, an integration of Javadoc and JUnit, which provides better support for class documentation and testing. With JUnitDoc, test cases are embedded in Javadoc comments and used as both examples for documentation and test cases for quality assurance. JUnitDoc extracts the test cases for use in HTML files serving as class documentation and in JUnit drivers for class testing. To address the difficult problem of testing inheritance hierarchies, JUnitDoc provides a novel solution in the form of a parallel test hierarchy. A small controlled experiment compares the readability of JUnitDoc documentation to formal documentation written in Object-Z. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Maximising the information gained from an experimental analysis of code inspection and static analysis for concurrent Java components

The results of empirical studies are limited to particular contexts, difficult to generalise and the studies themselves are expensive to perform. Despite these problems, empirical studies in software engineering can be made effective and they are important to both researchers and practitioners. The key to their effectiveness lies in the maximisation of the information that can be gained by examining existing studies, conducting power analyses for an accurate minimum sample size and benefiting from previous studies through replication. This approach was applied in a controlled experiment examining the combination of automated static analysis tools and code inspection in the context of verification and validation (V&V) of concurrent Java components. The combination of these V&V technologies was shown to be cost-effective despite the size of the study, which thus contributes to research in V&V technology evaluation.

Controlled Radical Polymerization of Styrene and Methyl Acrylate in the Presence of Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Agents, Phenylethyl Phenyl Dithioacetate and Phenyldithioacetic Acid

The use of phenyldithioacetic acid (PDA) in homopolymerizations of styrene or methyl acrylate produced only a small fraction of chains with dithioester end groups. The polymerizations using 1-phenylentyl phenyldithioacetate (PEPDTA) and PDA in the same reaction showed that PDA had little or no influence on the rate or molecular weight distribution even when a 1:1 ratio is used. The mechanistic pathway for the polymerizations in the presence of PDA seemed to be different for each monomer. Styrene favors addition of styrene to PDA via a Markovnikov type addition to form a reactive RAFT agent. The polymer was shown by double detection SEC to contain dithioester end groups over the whole distribution. This polymer was then used in a chain extension experiment and the M-n was close to theory. A unique feature of this work was that PDA could be used to form a RAFT agent in situ by heating a mixture of styrene and PDA for 24 h at 70 degrees C and then polymerizing in the presence of AIBN to give a linear increase in Mn and low values of PDI (< 1.14). In the case of the polymerization of MA with PDA, the mechanism was proposed to be via degradative chain transfer. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.