Browsing by Subject "Anti-patterns"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Do developers fix continuous integration smells?
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2023-12-08) Yaşa, Ayberk; Ergül, Ege; Erdoğmus, H.; Tüzün, Eray
Continuous Integration (CI) is a common software engineering practice in which the code changes are frequently merged into a software project repository after automated builds and tests have been successfully run. CI enables developers to quickly detect bugs, enhance the quality of the code, and shorten review times. However, developers may encounter some obstacles in following the CI principles. They may be unaware of them, they may follow the principles partially or they may even act against them. These behaviors result in CI smells. CI smells may in turn lessen the benefits of CI. Addressing CI smells rapidly allows software projects to fully reap the benefits of CI and increase its effectiveness. The main objective of this study is to investigate how frequently developers address CI smells. To achieve this objective, we first selected seven smells, then implemented scripts for detecting these smells automatically, and then ran the scripts in eight open-source software projects using GitHub Actions. To assess the resolution extent of CI smells by practitioners, we calculated the occurrences and time-to-resolution (TTR) of each smell. Our results suggest that Skipped Job smell has been fixed slightly more than other CI smells. The most frequently observed smell was Long Build, which was detected in an average of 19.03% of all CI builds. Fake Success smell does not get resolved in projects where it exists. Our study reveals that practitioners do not fix CI smells in practice. Further studies are needed to explore the underlying reasons behind this, in order to recommend more effective strategies for addressing these smells.
Open Access
Taxonomy of bug tracking process smells: perceptions of practitioners and an empirical analysis
(2022-01) Qamar, Khushbakht Ali
Bug tracking is the process of monitoring and reporting malfunctions or issues found in software. While there is no consensus on a formally specified bug tracking process, some certain rules and best practices for an optimal bug tracking pro-cess are accepted by many companies and open-source software (OSS) projects. Despite slight variations between different platforms, the primary aim of all these rules and practices is to perform a more efficient bug tracking process. Practi-tioners’ non-compliance with the best practices not only impedes the benefits of the bug tracking process but also negatively affects the other phases of the life cycle of software development. The goal of this study is to gain a better knowledge of the bad practices that occur during the bug tracking process, that is bug tracking process smells. In this study, based on the results of a multivocal literature review, we analyzed 60 sources in academic and gray literature and propose a taxonomy of 12 bad practices in the bug tracking process, that is bug tracking process smells. To quantitatively analyze these process smells, we inspected bug reports collected from six projects (four of them are Jira-based and the other two are Bugzilla-based). To get an idea about the perception of practitioners about the taxonomy of bug tracking process smells, we conducted a targeted survey with 30 software practitioners from different countries. Moreover, we statistically analyzed the impact of bug tracking process smells on the resolution time and reopening count of bugs. We observed from our empirical results that a considerable amount of bug tracking process smells exist in all projects and some of the process smell cate-gories have a statistically significant impact on quality and speed. Survey results showed that the majority of software practitioners agree with our taxonomy of bug tracking process smells. The empirical analysis reveals that bug tracking process smells have a significant impact on OSS projects. In practice, the pro-posed taxonomy may serve as a foundation for best practices and tool assistance for detecting and avoiding bug tracking process smells.
Open Access
Taxonomy of bug tracking process smells: perceptions of practitioners and an empirical analysis
(Elsevier, 2022-06-03) Khushbakht, Ali Qamar; Sülün, Emre; Tüzün, Eray
Context: While there is no consensus on a formally specified bug tracking process, some certain rules and best practices for an optimal bug tracking process are accepted by many companies and open-source software (OSS) projects. Despite slight variations between different platforms, the primary aim of all these rules and practices is to perform a more efficient bug tracking process. Practitioners’ non-compliance with the best practices not only impedes the benefits of the bug tracking process but also negatively affects the other phases of software development life cycle. Objective: The goal of this study is to gain a better knowledge of the bad practices that occur during the bug tracking process (bug tracking process smells) and to perform quantitative analysis to show that these process smells exist in bug tracking systems. Moreover, we want to know the perception of software practitioners related to these process smells and also observe the impact of process smells on the bug tracking process. Methods: Based on the results of a multivocal literature review, we analyzed 60 sources in academic and gray literature and propose a taxonomy of 12 bad practices in the bug tracking process. To quantitatively analyze these process smells, we inspected bug reports collected from eight projects which use Jira, Bugzilla, and GitHub Issues. To get an idea about the perception of practitioners about the taxonomy of bug tracking process smells, we conducted a targeted survey with 30 software practitioners. Moreover, we statistically analyzed the impact of bug tracking process smells on the resolution time and reopening count of bugs. Results: We observed from our empirical results that a considerable amount of bug tracking process smells exist in all projects and some of the process smell categories have statistically significant impacts on quality and speed. Survey results shows that the majority of software practitioners agree with the proposed taxonomy of BT process smells. Conclusion: The statistical analysis reveals that bug tracking process smells have an impact on OSS projects. The proposed taxonomy may serve as a foundation for best practices and tool support for detecting and avoiding bug tracking process smells. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
Open Access
Towards a taxonomy of bug tracking process smells: a quantitative analysis
(IEEE, 2021-01-27) Ali Qamar, Khushbakht; Sülün, Emre; Tüzün, Eray
Bug tracking is the process of monitoring and reporting malfunctions or issues found in software. While there is no consensus on a formally specified bug tracking process, some certain rules and best practices for an optimal bug tracking process are accepted by many companies and open-source software (OSS) projects. Despite slight variations between different platforms, the primary aim of all these rules and practices is to perform a more efficient bug tracking process. Practitioners’ noncompliance with the best practices not only impedes the benefits of the bug tracking process but also negatively affects the other phases of the life cycle of software development.In this study, based on the results of a multivocal literature review, we analyzed 60 sources in academic and gray literature and propose a taxonomy of 12 bad practices in the bug tracking process, that is bug tracking process smells. To quantitatively analyze these process smells, we inspect bug reports collected from six projects. Among these projects, four of them are Jira-based (MongoDB Core Server, Evergreen, Confluence Server & Data Center, Jira Server & Data Center) and the other two are Bugzilla-based (GCC and Wireshark). We observed that a considerable amount of bug tracking process smells exist in all projects with varying ratios.