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Existing software tools enable characterizing and measuring the amount of technical debt at selective granularity levels. In this paper we aim to study the evolution and characteristics of technical debt in open-source software. We carry…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2020-07-28 Arthur-Jozsef Molnar , Simona Motogna

To complete tasks faster, developers often have to sacrifice the quality of the software. Such compromised practice results in the increasing burden to developers in future development. The metaphor, technical debt, describes such practice.…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-02-15 Jiakun Liu , Qiao Huang , Xin Xia , Emad Shihab , David Lo , Shanping Li

Context: Previous studies demonstrate that Machine or Deep Learning (ML/DL) models can detect Technical Debt from source code comments called Self-Admitted Technical Debt (SATD). Despite the importance of ML/DL in software development,…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-08-23 Emmanuel Iko-Ojo Simon , Chirath Hettiarachchi , Alex Potanin , Hanna Suominen , Fatemeh Fard

Context: Technical Debt (TD) can be paid back either by those that incurred it or by others. We call the former self-fixed TD, and it can be particularly effective, as developers are experts in their own code and are well-suited to fix the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-10-13 Jie Tan , Daniel Feitosa , Paris Avgeriou

Multi-task learning is a paradigm that leverages information from related tasks to improve the performance of machine learning. Self-Admitted Technical Debt (SATD) are comments in the code that indicate not-quite-right code introduced for…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-07-03 Barbara Russo , Jorge Melegati , Moritz Mock

Self-admitted technical debt (SATD) impairs scientific software (SSW), yet its prioritization, sentiment, persistence, and propagation remains underexplored. Understanding how SSW developers express, and address SATD is crucial for…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-03-18 Eric L. Melin , Nasir U. Eisty , Gregory R. Watson , Addi Malviya-Thakur

The technical debt (TD) metaphor describes actions made during various stages of software development that lead to a more costly future regarding system maintenance and evolution. According to recent studies, on average 25% of development…

With the increasing reliance on software and automation nowadays, tight deadlines, limited resources, and prioritization of functionality over security can lead to insecure coding practices. When not handled properly, these constraints…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-07-16 Chaima Boufaied , Taher Ghaleb , Zainab Masood

Technical debt (TD) refers to delayed tasks and immature artifacts that may bring short-term benefits but incur extra costs of change during maintenance and evolution in the long term. TD has been extensively studied in the past decade, and…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-12-13 Zengyang Li , Yilin Peng , Peng Liang , Apostolos Ampatzoglou , Ran Mo , Hui Liu , Xiaoxiao Qi

Software practitioners can make sub-optimal decisions concerning requirements during gathering, documenting, prioritizing, and implementing requirements as software features or architectural design decisions -- this is captured by the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-07-02 Judith Perera , Ewan Tempero , Yu-Cheng Tu , Kelly Blincoe , Matthias Galster

Architectural technical debt (ATD) represents trade-offs in software architecture that accelerate initial development but create long-term maintenance challenges. ATD, in particular when self-admitted, impacts the foundational structure of…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-05-06 Edi Sutoyo , Paris Avgeriou , Andrea Capiluppi

The technical debt (TD) metaphor is widely used to encapsulate numerous software quality problems. She describes the trade-off between the short term benefit of taking a shortcut during the design or implementation phase of a software…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2019-11-19 Ronivon Dias , Pedro Neto , Irvayne Ibiapina , Guilherme Avelino e Otavio Castro

Technical Debt, considered by many to be the 'silent killer' of software projects, has undeniably become part of the everyday vocabulary of software engineers. We know it compromises the internal quality of a system, either deliberately or…

Dockerfiles enable the creation of portable container-based execution environments for the application code, and have become an important part of the modern software development process. As Dockerfiles are a form of Infrastructure-as-Code…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-21 Wei Minn , Yan Naing Tun , Biniam Fesseha Demissie , Rui'ang Hu , Jiakun Liu , Mariano Ceccato , Lwin Khin Shar , David Lo

Context: Technical Debt needs to be managed to avoid disastrous consequences, and investigating developers' habits concerning technical debt management is invaluable information in software development. Objective: This study aims to…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2020-09-10 Zadia Codabux , Christopher Dutchyn

Context: Technical debt (TD) is a widely studied metaphor that helps to explain how sub-optimal decisions that can harm software maintainability over time. Although incurring TD is not intrinsically bad, tracking and managing TD are crucial…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-29 João Paulo Biazotto , Daniel Feitosa , Paris Avgeriou , Elisa Yumi Nakagawa

The technical state of software, i.e., its technical debt (TD) and maintainability are of increasing interest as ever more software is developed and deployed. Since td and maintainability are neither uniformly defined, not easy to…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-03-01 Rolf-Helge Pfeiffer , Mircea Lungu

Technical Debt (TD) refers to the long-term costs incurred when developers prioritize short-term delivery over quality-improving work. Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) arises when architectural decisions (e.g., technology choices,…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-18 Edi Sutoyo , Paris Avgeriou , Andrea Capiluppi

Motivation: Code understandability is crucial in software development, as developers spend 58% to 70% of their time reading source code. Improving it can improve productivity and reduce maintenance costs. Problem: Experimental studies often…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-11-13 Delano Oliveira , Reydne Santos , Benedito de Oliveira , Martin Monperrus , Fernando Castor , Fernanda Madeiral

Background: Technical Debt (TD) describes suboptimal software development practices with long-term consequences, such as defects and vulnerabilities. Deadlines are a leading cause of the emergence of TD in software systems. While multiple…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-05-08 Joshua Aldrich Edbert , Zadia Codabux , Roberto Verdecchia