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With the growing popularity of Large Language Models (LLMs) in software engineers' daily practices, it is important to ensure that the code generated by these tools is not only functionally correct but also free of vulnerabilities. Although…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-09-06 Mohammed Latif Siddiq , Joanna C. S. Santos , Sajith Devareddy , Anna Muller

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current methods and metrics used to evaluate the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) in code generation tasks. With the rapid growth in demand for automated software development,…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-03-05 Liguo Chen , Qi Guo , Hongrui Jia , Zhengran Zeng , Xin Wang , Yijiang Xu , Jian Wu , Yidong Wang , Qing Gao , Jindong Wang , Wei Ye , Shikun Zhang

Software systems naturally evolve, and this evolution often brings design problems that cause system degradation. Architectural smells are typical symptoms of such problems, and several of these smells are related to undesired dependencies…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2018-08-21 J. Andrés Díaz-Pace , Antonela Tommasel , Daniela Godoy

Large Language Models (LLMs) are gaining popularity among software engineers. A crucial aspect of developing effective code generation LLMs is to evaluate these models using a robust benchmark. Evaluation benchmarks with quality issues can…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-09-05 Mohammed Latif Siddiq , Simantika Dristi , Joy Saha , Joanna C. S. Santos

Language models (LMs) have exhibited impressive abilities in generating codes from natural language requirements. In this work, we highlight the diversity of code generated by LMs as a critical criterion for evaluating their code generation…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-08-28 Heejae Chon , Seonghyeon Lee , Jinyoung Yeo , Dongha Lee

Code generation is one of the most active areas of application of Large Language Models (LLMs). While LLMs lower barriers to writing code and accelerate development process, the overall quality of generated programs depends on the quality…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-03-19 Andrei Paleyes , Radzim Sendyka , Diana Robinson , Christian Cabrera , Neil D. Lawrence

Code review that detects and locates defects and other quality issues plays an important role in software quality control. One type of issue that may impact the quality of software is code smells. Yet, little is known about the extent to…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-05-17 Xiaofeng Han , Amjed Tahir , Peng Liang , Steve Counsell , Kelly Blincoe , Bing Li , Yajing Luo

Building on the computer science concept of code smells, we initiate the study of law smells, i.e., patterns in legal texts that pose threats to the comprehensibility and maintainability of the law. With five intuitive law smells as running…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Corinna Coupette , Dirk Hartung , Janis Beckedorf , Maximilian Böther , Daniel Martin Katz

Automated code smell detection faces persistent challenges due to the subjectivity of heuristic rules and the limited performance of traditional ML/DL models. While Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a promising alternative, their adoption…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-03-30 Beiqi Zhang , Peng Liang , Xin Zhou , Xiyu Zhou , David Lo , Qiong Feng , Zengyang Li , Lin Li

Code complexity metrics such as cyclomatic complexity have long been used to assess software quality and maintainability. With the rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) on coding tasks, an important yet underexplored question…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Chen Xie , Xiaodong Gu , Yuling Shi , Beijun Shen

Context. Code smells, which are recurring anomalies in design or style, have been extensively researched in professional code. However, their significance in block-based projects created by novices is still largely unknown. Block-based…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-07-24 Ricardo Hidalgo Aragón , Jesús M. González-Barahona , Gregorio Robles

In the era of large language models (LLMs), code benchmarks have become an important research area in software engineering and are widely used by practitioners. These benchmarks evaluate the performance of LLMs on specific code-related…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Zhiyuan Pan , Xing Hu , Xin Xia , Xiaohu Yang

Fault-proneness is an indication of programming errors that decreases software quality and maintainability. On the contrary, code smell is a symptom of potential design problems which has impact on fault-proneness. In the literature,…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-05-10 Md. Masudur Rahman , Toukir Ahammed , Md. Mahbubul Alam Joarder , Kazi Sakib

LLMs are increasingly embedded in programming workflows, from code generation to automated code review. Yet, how gendered communication styles interact with LLM-assisted programming and code review remains underexplored. We present a…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-03-26 Lynn Janzen , Üveys Eroglu , Dorothea Kolossa , Pia Knöferle , Sebastian Möller , Vera Schmitt , Veronika Solopova

LLMs promise to transform unit test generation from a manual burden into an automated solution. Yet, beyond metrics such as compilability or coverage, little is known about the quality of LLM-generated tests, particularly their…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-11-07 Wendkûuni C. Ouédraogo , Yinghua Li , Xueqi Dang , Xunzhu Tang , Anil Koyuncu , Jacques Klein , David Lo , Tegawendé F. Bissyandé

Background: The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) in software development has opened new possibilities for code generation. Despite the widespread use of this technology, it remains unclear how well LLMs generate code solutions in terms…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-08-04 Alfred Santa Molison , Marcia Moraes , Glaucia Melo , Fabio Santos , Wesley K. G. Assuncao

Test smells are coding issues that typically arise from inadequate practices, a lack of knowledge about effective testing, or deadline pressures to complete projects. The presence of test smells can negatively impact the maintainability and…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-07-31 Keila Lucas , Rohit Gheyi , Elvys Soares , Márcio Ribeiro , Ivan Machado

Nowadays, modern applications are developed using components written in different programming languages. These systems introduce several advantages. However, as the number of languages increases, so does the challenges related to the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-01-18 Mouna Abidi , Md Saidur Rahman , Moses Openja , Foutse Khomh

The popularity of machine learning has wildly expanded in recent years. Machine learning techniques have been heatedly studied in academia and applied in the industry to create business value. However, there is a lack of guidelines for code…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-03-31 Haiyin Zhang , Luís Cruz , Arie van Deursen

Large Language Model (LLM) Agents are advancing quickly, with the increasing leveraging of LLM Agents to assist in development tasks such as code generation. While LLM Agents accelerate code generation, studies indicate they may introduce…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-01-30 Haoming Huang , Pongchai Jaisri , Shota Shimizu , Lingfeng Chen , Sota Nakashima , Gema Rodríguez-Pérez