A Comparison of Software Refactoring Tools
Jocelyn Simmonds, Tom Mens · 2002
The principal aim of this paper is to apply the Taxonomy of Software Evolution, developed by Mens et. al [1], to position various software tools that support the activity of software refactoring as part of the evolutionary process. This taxonomy is based on the mechanisms of change and the factors that impact upon these mechanisms. The goal of this taxonomy is to position concrete tools and techniques within the domain of software evolution, so that it becomes easier to compare and combine them. In this paper, we apply the taxonomy to four tools that provide explicit support for refactoring. The tools that were considered for this detailed study are the following: Smalltalk VisualWorks 7.0 [2], Eclipse 2.0 [3], Guru (for SELF 4.0) [4] and the Together ControlCenter 6.0 [5]. After a detailed discussion and comparison of these tools, we analyse the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the evolution taxonomy that was used.