Application of the Refactoring to the Understandability and the Cognitive Complexity of a Software

Abstract

Cognitive complexity of a software determines the methodology of comprehending the internal logic of a given software by an individual, quantitatively. The procedure of handling a software by different users is different, which results the cognitive complexity as a subjective measurement. The quantification of the cognitive complexity is still not standardized due to the varied number of factors affected for the cognitive complexity determination and its nature of the subjectivity. This paper evaluates the relationship between the cognitive complexity and understandability as one of the qualitative factors to determine the cognitive complexity and the usage of refactoring techniques to reduce the cognitive complexity without refraining its calculation process with respective to the internal logic of the software as in other standard software complexity metrics perform.