Classifying code smells…

https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/article/10.1007%2Fs11219-020-09498-y

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

Code smells are quite interesting phenomena to study. They are not really defects, but they are not good code either. They exist, but people rarely want to admit to them. There is also no consensus to how much effort it takes to remove them (or even whether they should be removed or just avoided).

In this paper, the authors study whether it is possible to use ML to find code smells. It turns out it is possible and the accuracy is quite high (over 95%). It also shows that sometimes it is better to show a number of recommendations (e.g. two potential smells) rather than one – it requires less accuracy to make the recommendation, but helps the users to narrow-down their solution spaces.

Author: Miroslaw Staron

I’m professor in Software Engineering at IT faculty. I usually blog about interesting articles (for me) and my own reflections on the development of Software Engineering, AI, computer science and automotive software.