On method ordering

As the order of methods in a Java class has no effect on its semantics, an engineer can choose any order she prefers. Which code conventions regarding methods ordering are common in practice, if any? Are some orders better than others in making the code easier to understand? Can good orders be computed and applied automatically? In this work we address these questions. First, we present a study of method orders in a large body of open source projects, where we identify existing common practices. Second, we present four method ordering strategies, which we automate and provide in an Eclipse plugin, as a form of refactoring. Finally, we present the results of a user study, which evaluates the effect of our methods ordering strategies on engineers' code comprehension in terms of correctness and time spent on answering.