TY - GEN
T1 - Detecting Sudden Variations in Web Apps Code Smells’ Density
T2 - 14th International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology, QUATIC 2021
AU - Rio, Américo
AU - Abreu, Fernando Brito e
N1 - Rio, A., & Abreu, F. B. E. (2021). Detecting Sudden Variations in Web Apps Code Smells’ Density: A Longitudinal Study. In A. C. R. Paiva, A. R. Cavalli, P. Ventura Martins, & R. Pérez-Castillo (Eds.), Quality of Information and Communications Technology - 14th International Conference, QUATIC 2021, Proceedings (pp. 82-96). (Communications in Computer and Information Science; Vol. 1439 CCIS). Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85347-1_7
------------------------------------------------------------
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) projects UIDB/04466/2020 e UIDP/04466/ 2020.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2021/9/20
Y1 - 2021/9/20
N2 - Code smells are considered potentially harmful to software maintenance. Their introduction is dependent on the production of new code or the addition of smelly code produced by another team. Code smells survive until being refactored or the code where they stand is removed. Under normal conditions, we expect code smells density to be relatively stable throughout time. Anomalous (sudden) increases in this density are expected to hurt maintenance costs and the other way round. In the case of sudden increases, especially in pre-release tests in an automation server pipeline, detecting those outlier situations can trigger refactoring actions before releasing the new version. This paper presents a longitudinal study on the sudden variations in the introduction and removal of 18 server code smells on 8 PHP web apps, across several years. The study regards web applications but can be generalized to other domains, using other CS and tools. We propose a standardized detection criterion for this kind of code smell anomalies. Besides providing a retrospective view of the code smell evolution phenomenon, our detection approach, which is particularly amenable to graphical monitoring, can make software project managers aware of the need for enforcing refactoring actions.
AB - Code smells are considered potentially harmful to software maintenance. Their introduction is dependent on the production of new code or the addition of smelly code produced by another team. Code smells survive until being refactored or the code where they stand is removed. Under normal conditions, we expect code smells density to be relatively stable throughout time. Anomalous (sudden) increases in this density are expected to hurt maintenance costs and the other way round. In the case of sudden increases, especially in pre-release tests in an automation server pipeline, detecting those outlier situations can trigger refactoring actions before releasing the new version. This paper presents a longitudinal study on the sudden variations in the introduction and removal of 18 server code smells on 8 PHP web apps, across several years. The study regards web applications but can be generalized to other domains, using other CS and tools. We propose a standardized detection criterion for this kind of code smell anomalies. Besides providing a retrospective view of the code smell evolution phenomenon, our detection approach, which is particularly amenable to graphical monitoring, can make software project managers aware of the need for enforcing refactoring actions.
KW - Anomaly detection
KW - Code smells
KW - Outliers
KW - PHP
KW - Sudden variations
KW - Web apps
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115252433&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-85347-1_7
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-85347-1_7
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85115252433
SN - 9783030853464
T3 - Communications in Computer and Information Science
SP - 82
EP - 96
BT - Quality of Information and Communications Technology - 14th International Conference, QUATIC 2021, Proceedings
A2 - Paiva, Ana C.R.
A2 - Cavalli, Ana Rosa
A2 - Ventura Martins, Paula
A2 - Pérez-Castillo, Ricardo
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Y2 - 8 September 2021 through 11 September 2021
ER -