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Towards convenient management of software clone codes in practice: an integrated approach

Software code cloning is inevitable during software development and unmanaged cloning practice can create substantial problems for software maintenance and evolution. Current research in the area software clones includes, but is not limited to: finding ways to manage clones; gaining more control over clone generation; and, studying clone evolution and its effects on the evolution of software. In this study, we investigate tools and techniques for detecting, managing, and understanding the evolution of clones, as well as design a convenient tool to make those techniques available to a developer's software development environment. Towards the goal of promoting the practical use of code clone research and to provide better support for managing clones in software systems, we first developed SimEclipse: a clone-aware software development platform, and then, using the tool, we performed a study to investigate the usefulness of using a number clone based technologies in an integrated platform rather than using those discretely. Finally, a small scale user study is performed to evaluate SimEclipse's effectiveness, usability and information management with respect to some pre-defined clone management activities. We believe that both researchers and developers would enjoy and utilize the benefits of using SimEclipse for different aspects of code clone research as well as for managing cloned code in software systems.