{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,30]],"date-time":"2026-01-30T01:50:05Z","timestamp":1769737805534,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,31]],"date-time":"2023-01-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1675123200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Code readability and software complexity are considered essential components of software quality. They significantly impact software metrics, such as reusability and maintenance. The maintainability process consumes a high percentage of the software lifecycle cost, which is considered a very costly phase and should be given more focus and attention. For this reason, the importance of code readability and software complexity is addressed by considering the most time-consuming component in all software maintenance activities. This paper empirically studies the relationship between code readability and software complexity using various readability and complexity metrics and machine learning algorithms. The results are derived from an analysis dataset containing roughly 12,180 Java files, 25 readability features, and several complexity metric variables. Our study empirically shows how these two attributes affect each other. The code readability affects software complexity with 90.15% effectiveness using a decision tree classifier. In addition, the impact of software complexity on the readability of code using the decision tree classifier has a 90.01% prediction accuracy.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info14020081","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,1]],"date-time":"2023-02-01T05:33:53Z","timestamp":1675229633000},"page":"81","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["A Notional Understanding of the Relationship between Code Readability and Software Complexity"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4248-8732","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yahya","family":"Tashtoush","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Noor","family":"Abu-El-Rub","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Medical Informatics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Rainbow Boulevard, Kansas, KS 66160, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8346-7148","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Omar","family":"Darwish","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Information Security and Applied Computing, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shorouq","family":"Al-Eidi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, Tafila Technical University, Tafila 66110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Dirar","family":"Darweesh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ola","family":"Karajeh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/2047414.2047424","article-title":"Assessment of Maintainability Metrics of Object-Oriented Software System","volume":"36","author":"Dubey","year":"2011","journal-title":"ACM Sigsoft Softw. 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