Related papers: An Empirical Study of Java Code Improvements Based…

In current research, there are contrasting results about the applicability of software source code metrics as features for defect prediction models. The goal of the paper is to evaluate the adoption of software metrics in models for…

Since programming concepts do not match their syntactic representations, code search is a very tedious task. For instance in Java or C, array doesn't match [], so using "array" as a query, one cannot find what they are looking for. Often…

Quality assurance (QA) tools are receiving more and more attention and are widely used by developers. Given the wide range of solutions for QA technology, it is still a question of evaluating QA tools. Most existing research is limited in…

Code analyzers such as Error Prone and FindBugs detect code patterns symptomatic of bugs, performance issues, or bad style. These tools express patterns as quick fixes that detect and rewrite unwanted code. However, it is difficult to come…

Code comments are the primary means to document implementation and facilitate program comprehension. Thus, their quality should be a primary concern to improve program maintenance. While much effort has been dedicated to detecting bad…

As software projects progress, quality of code assumes paramount importance as it affects reliability, maintainability and security of software. For this reason, static analysis tools are used in developer workflows to flag code quality…

In the past decade, research on test-suite-based automatic program repair has grown significantly. Each year, new approaches and implementations are featured in major software engineering venues. However, most of those approaches are…

Large Language Models (LLMs) are widely used to support software developers in tasks such as code generation, optimization, and documentation. However, their ability to improve existing programming answers in a human-like manner remains…

A central function of code review is to increase understanding; helping reviewers understand a code change aids in knowledge transfer and finding bugs. Comments in code largely serve a similar purpose, helping future readers understand the…

Context: Security Vulnerabilities (SVs) pose many serious threats to software systems. Developers usually seek solutions to addressing these SVs on developer Question and Answer (Q&A) websites. However, there is still little known about…

Source code repositories allow developers to manage multiple versions (or branches) of a software system. Pull-requests are used to modify a branch, and backporting is a regular activity used to port changes from a current development…

Context: The advent of Large Language Model-driven tools like ChatGPT offers software engineers an interactive alternative to community question-answering (CQA) platforms like Stack Overflow. While Stack Overflow provides benefits from the…

Static program analysis tools are often required to work with only a small part of a program's source code, either due to the unavailability of the entire program or the lack of need to analyze the complete code. This makes it challenging…

Software applications integrate more and more open-source software (OSS) to benefit from code reuse. As a drawback, each vulnerability discovered in bundled OSS potentially affects the application. Upon the disclosure of every new…

Generative machine learning models have recently been applied to source code, for use cases including translating code between programming languages, creating documentation from code, and auto-completing methods. Yet, state-of-the-art…

Platforms such as Stack Overflow are available for software practitioners to solicit solutions to their challenges and knowledge needs. The practices therein have in recent times however triggered quality related concerns. This is a…

Code smells are symptoms of poor design quality. Since code review is a process that also aims at improving code quality, we investigate whether and how code review influences the severity of code smells. In this study, we analyze more than…

Code review is a popular practice where developers critique each others' changes. Since automated builds can identify low-level issues (e.g., syntactic errors, regression bugs), it is not uncommon for software organizations to incorporate…

Code comments can help in program comprehension and are considered as important artifacts to help developers in software maintenance. However, the comments are mostly missing or are outdated, specially in complex software projects. As a…

Third-party libraries are a central building block to develop software systems. However, outdated third-party libraries are commonly used, and developers are usually less aware of the potential risks. Therefore, a quantitative and holistic…