Related papers: PLOS/Mozilla Scientific Code Review Pilot: Summary…
We describe two pilot studies of code review by and for scientists. Our principal findings are that scientists are enthusiastic, but need to be shown code review in action, and that just-in-time review of small code changes is more likely…
Background: Research software is software developed by and/or used by researchers, across a wide variety of domains, to perform their research. Because of the complexity of research software, developers cannot conduct exhaustive testing. As…
Code reviews are popular in both industrial and open source projects. The benefits of code reviews are widely recognized and include better code quality and lower likelihood of introducing bugs. However, since code review is a manual…
Code reviews are a critical aspect of open-source software (OSS) development, ensuring quality and fostering collaboration. This study examines perceptions, challenges, and biases in OSS code review processes, focusing on the perspectives…
Scientific software is one of the key elements for reproducible research. However, classic publications and related scientific software are typically not (sufficiently) linked, and it lacks tools to jointly explore these artefacts. In this…
Scientific software-defined as computer programs, scripts, or code used in scientific research, data analysis, modeling, or simulation-has become central to modern research. However, there is limited research on the readability and…
Background: Contemporary software development organizations lack diversity and the ratios of women in Free and open-source software (FOSS) communities are even lower than the industry average. Although the results of recent studies hint the…
Code review is widely known as one of the best practices for software quality assurance in software development. In a typical code review process, reviewers check the code committed by developers to ensure the quality of the code, during…
Computational reproducibility of scientific results, that is, the execution of a computational experiment (e.g., a script) using its original settings (data, code, etc.), should always be possible. However, reproducibility has become a…
Code review is a widespread practice to improve software quality and transfer knowledge. It is often seen as time-consuming due to the need for manual effort and potential delays. Several AI-assisted tools, such as Qodo, GitHub Copilot, and…
This article describes the motivation, design, and progress of the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). JOSS is a free and open-access journal that publishes articles describing research software. It has the dual goals of improving the…
Context: Software code review aims to early find code anomalies and to perform code improvements when they are less expensive. However, issues and challenges faced by developers who do not apply code review practices regularly are unclear.…
Background: Research software is crucial for enabling research discoveries and supporting data analysis, simulation, and interpretation across domains. However, evolving requirements, complex inputs, and legacy dependencies hinder the…
Nowadays, software testing professionals are commonly required to develop coding skills to work on test automation. One essential skill required from those who code is the ability to implement code refactoring, a valued quality aspect of…
Code Review consists in assessing the code written by teammates with the goal of increasing code quality. Empirical studies documented the benefits brought by such a practice that, however, has its cost to pay in terms of developers' time.…
We need ways to improve the code quality. Programmers have different level of tenure and experience. Standard and programming languages change and we are forced to re-use legacy code with minimum revision. Programmers develop their habits…
Context: Writing Clean Code understandable by other collaborators has become crucial to enhancing collaboration and productivity. However, very little is known regarding whether developers agree with Clean Code Principles and how they apply…
Engineering software systems is a multidisciplinary activity, whereby a number of artifacts must be created - and maintained - synchronously. In this paper we investigate whether production code and the accompanying tests co-evolve by…
Software bots have been facilitating several development activities in Open Source Software (OSS) projects, including code review. However, these bots may bring unexpected impacts to group dynamics, as frequently occurs with new technology…
Context: Innovation thrives on scientific software, with useful code review feedback enhancing its correctness and impact. However, unlike general-purpose commercial and open-source software, the usefulness of code review feedback (CR…