Empirical evaluation of an architectural technical debt index in the context of the Apache and ONAP ecosystems.
Empirical evaluation
Index
Software architecture
Software metrics
Software portfolio analysis
Technical debt
Journal
PeerJ. Computer science
ISSN: 2376-5992
Titre abrégé: PeerJ Comput Sci
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101660598
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2022
2022
Historique:
received:
27
06
2021
accepted:
06
12
2021
entrez:
2
5
2022
pubmed:
3
5
2022
medline:
3
5
2022
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) in a software-intensive system denotes architectural design choices which, while being suitable or even optimal when adopted, lower the maintainability and evolvability of the system in the long term, hindering future development activities. Despite the growing research interest in ATD, how to gain an informative and encompassing viewpoint of the ATD present in a software-intensive system is still an open problem. In this study, we evaluate ATDx, a data-driven approach providing an overview of the ATD present in a software-intensive system. The approach, based on the analysis of a software portfolio, calculates severity levels of architectural rule violations via a clustering algorithm, and aggregates results into different ATD dimensions. To evaluate ATDx, we implement an instance of the approach based on SonarQube, and run the analysis on the Apache and ONAP ecosystems. The analysis results are then shared with the portfolio contributors, who are invited to participate in an online survey designed to evaluate the representativeness and actionability of the approach. The survey results confirm the representativeness of the ATDx, in terms of both the ATDx analysis results and the used architectural technical debt dimensions. Results also showed the actionability of the approach, although to a lower extent when compared to the ATDx representativeness, with usage scenarios including refactoring, code review, communication, and ATD evolution analysis. With ATDx, we strive for the establishment of a sound, comprehensive, and intuitive architectural view of the ATD identifiable via source code analysis. The collected results are promising, and display both the representativeness and actionability of the approach. As future work, we plan to consolidate the approach via further empirical experimentation, by considering other development contexts (
Sections du résumé
Background
UNASSIGNED
Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) in a software-intensive system denotes architectural design choices which, while being suitable or even optimal when adopted, lower the maintainability and evolvability of the system in the long term, hindering future development activities. Despite the growing research interest in ATD, how to gain an informative and encompassing viewpoint of the ATD present in a software-intensive system is still an open problem.
Objective
UNASSIGNED
In this study, we evaluate ATDx, a data-driven approach providing an overview of the ATD present in a software-intensive system. The approach, based on the analysis of a software portfolio, calculates severity levels of architectural rule violations via a clustering algorithm, and aggregates results into different ATD dimensions.
Method
UNASSIGNED
To evaluate ATDx, we implement an instance of the approach based on SonarQube, and run the analysis on the Apache and ONAP ecosystems. The analysis results are then shared with the portfolio contributors, who are invited to participate in an online survey designed to evaluate the representativeness and actionability of the approach.
Results
UNASSIGNED
The survey results confirm the representativeness of the ATDx, in terms of both the ATDx analysis results and the used architectural technical debt dimensions. Results also showed the actionability of the approach, although to a lower extent when compared to the ATDx representativeness, with usage scenarios including refactoring, code review, communication, and ATD evolution analysis.
Conclusions
UNASSIGNED
With ATDx, we strive for the establishment of a sound, comprehensive, and intuitive architectural view of the ATD identifiable via source code analysis. The collected results are promising, and display both the representativeness and actionability of the approach. As future work, we plan to consolidate the approach via further empirical experimentation, by considering other development contexts (
Identifiants
pubmed: 35494860
doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.833
pii: cs-833
pmc: PMC9044209
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
e833Informations de copyright
©2022 Verdecchia et al.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors declare there are no competing interests.
Références
R J. 2011 Dec;3(2):29-33
pubmed: 27942416