Design Patterns in Software Maintenance: An Experiment Replication at Brigham Young University

In 2001 Prechelt et al. published the results of a controlled experiment in software maintenance comparing design patterns to simpler solutions. Since that time, only one replication of the experiment has been performed (published in 2004). The replication found remarkably (though not surprisingly) different results. In this paper we present the results of another replication of Prechelt's experiment, conducted at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2010. This replication was performed as part of a joint replication project hosted by the 2011 Workshop on Replication in Empirical Software Engineering Research (RESER). The data and results from this experiment are meant to be considered in connection with the results of other contributions to the joint replication project.