Assessing the maintenance process through replicated, controlled experiments

This work describes a controlled experiment comparing maintenance processes derived from two different paradigms: Quick Fix (Q.F.) and Iterative Enhancement (I.E.). It has been repeated twice with undergraduate students and once with professional developers (I.E.). The first time served to improve the material for successive replications. The experiment aimed to ascertain the quality of the maintenance process in terms of the correctness and completeness of the modifications made and whether Q.F. processes are more timely than I.E. From the results of the experiments it would seem that on the one hand, the Q.F. is not appreciably more timely than I.E., while on the other, it results in lesser correctness, completeness and traceability. Thus, Q.F. damages the comprehensibility of the system more then I.E. does. In any case, the software quality must be safeguarded after maintenance, as even I.E. is not entirely free from harmful effects.