Limitations in the Support to Modularity in MATLAB: a Survey-based Empirical Study

This research compares modularity mechanisms provided in MATLAB with those of a mainstream programming language (Java) and describes the results of a survey-based study on the opinion of the MATLAB community about the limitations to the support of modularity provided by that language and its consequences in the light of Software Engineering theory. Social networks and email were used to broadcast the questionnaire to potential participants.

Four research questions were set at the start of the study, which originated eight hypotheses. Topics covered include MATLAB developers’ relationship with code tangling, code duplication avoidance, modularity, code maintainability and code structure. We analyzed if the opinions on those issues were different on industry and academia.

Main results are as follows. Developers are aware of code tangling in MATLAB software and care about it. They tend not to use the sole available tool to help them visualize code structure but would like to have one. Developers from both industry and academia feel the same way about MATLAB code maintainability and code duplication avoidance.

Internal validity of the used research instrument was guaranteed, doubtful responses were discarded, and results are statistically significant. However, external validity (generalization) of results cannot be claimed due to the sample size and its questionable representativeness.