research-article

Identifying design problems in the source code: a grounded theory

Authors:

Leonardo Sousa,

Anderson Oliveira,

Willian Oizumi,

Simone Barbosa,

Alessandro Garcia,

Marcos Kalinowski,

Rafael de Mello,

Baldoino Fonseca,

Roberto Oliveira,

Rodrigo PaesAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 921 - 931

https://doi.org/10.1145/3180155.3180239

Published: 27 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The prevalence of design problems may cause re-engineering or even discontinuation of the system. Due to missing, informal or outdated design documentation, developers often have to rely on the source code to identify design problems. Therefore, developers have to analyze different symptoms that manifest in several code elements, which may quickly turn into a complex task. Although researchers have been investigating techniques to help developers in identifying design problems, there is little knowledge on how developers actually proceed to identify design problems. In order to tackle this problem, we conducted a multi-trial industrial experiment with professionals from 5 software companies to build a grounded theory. The resulting theory offers explanations on how developers identify design problems in practice. For instance, it reveals the characteristics of symptoms that developers consider helpful. Moreover, developers often combine different types of symptoms to identify a single design problem. This knowledge serves as a basis to further understand the phenomena and advance towards more effective identification techniques.

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643750
Hoda RHoda R(2024)Traditional Grounded Theory MethodsQualitative Research with Socio-Technical Grounded Theory10.1007/978-3-031-60533-8_2(15-35)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60533-8_2
Belém PDe Mello RVivacqua ANeves De Souza A(2023)Investigating the Cognitive Load Drivers of Software Evolution ActivitiesProceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3613372.3613377(342-347)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
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Index Terms

Identifying design problems in the source code: a grounded theory
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Software design engineering

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2018

1307 pages

ISBN:9781450356381

DOI:10.1145/3180155

Conference Chair:
Michel Chaudron
Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
,
General Chair:
Ivica Crnkovic
Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
,
Program Chairs:
Marsha Chechik
University of Toronto, Canada
,
Mark Harman
Facebook and University College London, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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Published: 27 May 2018

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May 27 - June 3, 2018

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643750
Hoda RHoda R(2024)Traditional Grounded Theory MethodsQualitative Research with Socio-Technical Grounded Theory10.1007/978-3-031-60533-8_2(15-35)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60533-8_2
Belém PDe Mello RVivacqua ANeves De Souza A(2023)Investigating the Cognitive Load Drivers of Software Evolution ActivitiesProceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3613372.3613377(342-347)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613372.3613377
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