Scale-free Geometry in Object-Oriented Programs

CS-TR-02-30

Authors: Alex Potanin, James Noble, Marcus Frean, Robert Biddle, Elvis Software Design Research Group ~
Source: GZipped PostScript (212kb); Adobe PDF (345kb)


In this article we examine the graphs formed by object-oriented programs written in a variety of languages, and show that these turn out to be scale-free networks without exception. Apart from its considerable intrinsic interest, this unexpected facet of the geometry of real programs may help us optimize language runtime systems and improve the design of future object-oriented languages.

[Up to Computer Science Technical Report Archive: Home Page]