| 1. |
- Ahmad, Muhammad Ovais, Associate Professor/Lektor, et al.
(författare)
-
Early career software developers and work preferences in software engineering
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 36:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: The software engineering researchers and practitioners echoed the needfor investigations to better understand the engineers developing software andservices. In light of current studies, there are significant associations between thepersonalities of software engineers and their work preferences. However, limitedstudies are using psychometric measurements in software engineering.Objective: We aim to evaluate attitudes of early-stage software engineers andinvestigate link between their personalities and work preferences.Method: We collected extensive psychometric data from 303 graduate-levelstudents in Computer Science programs at four Pakistani and one Swedish universityusing Five-Factor Model. The statistical analysis investigated associations betweenvarious personality traits and work preferences.Results: The data support the existence of two clusters of software engineers, one ofwhich is more highly rated across the board. Numerous correlations exist betweenpersonality qualities and the preferred types of employment for software developers.For instance, those who exhibit greater levels of emotional stability, agreeableness,extroversion, and conscientiousness like working on technical activities on a settimetable. Similar relationships between personalities and occupational choices arealso evident in the earlier studies. More neuroticism is reported in femalerespondents than in male respondents. Higher intelligence was demonstrated bythose who worked on the“entire development process”and“technical componentsof the project.”Conclusion: When assigning project tasks to software engineers, managers might usethe statistically significant relationships that emerged from the analysis of personalityattributes. It would be beneficial to construct effective teams by taking personalityfactors like extraversion and agreeableness into consideration. The study techniquesand analytical tools we use may identify subtle relationships and reflect distinctionsacross various groups and populations, making them valuable resources for bothfuture academic research and industrial practice.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ahmad, Muhammad Ovais, Associate Professor/Lektor, et al.
(författare)
-
The Pandora's box of social, process, and people debts in software engineering
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 36:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In software engineering, technical debt (TD) has been widely investigated, but debt regarding social issues, people, and processes has not been explored as much. It should be noted here that we use nontechnical debt (NTD) as an umbrella term to cover social, process, and people debts. Although the number of studies on NTD in software is increasing, the majority of them are descriptive rather than rigorous, and there is no systematic development of cumulative knowledge. As a result, identifying the fundamental causes of NTD and the associated mitigation techniques in software engineering is challenging. Therefore, this study investigates the scientific evidence regarding NTD till date by conducting a systematic mapping review of software engineering research between January 2000 and October 2021. The search strategy resulted in 175 studies, 17 of which were identified as unique and relevant primary papers. The primary studies show that NTD and TD are inextricably linked. In addition, this study also captured a plethora of causes and mitigation strategies for managing NTD and thus makes four important contributions: (i) highlighting state-of-the-art NTD research; (ii) identification of the reported causes and mitigation strategies in the primary papers; and (iii) determination of opportunities for future NTD research.
|
|
| 3. |
- Al Sabbagh, Khaled, 1987, et al.
(författare)
-
The connections between group maturity, software development velocity, and planning effectiveness
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software-Evolution and Process. - : Wiley. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 30:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Empirical evidence regarding the connection between group development (maturity) and the success of software development teams is lacking. The purpose of this research is to gain a qualitative and quantitative understanding of how velocity and planning effectiveness of software teams connect to a group development model. The Group Development Questionnaire was given to 19 software developers from 4 work groups to assess their group development maturity. The work groups' responses to the survey were checked for correlation with development velocity and planning effectiveness. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 16 individuals from the same 4 work groups to explore issues about their group maturity and to validate the responses of the interviewees in the Group Development Questionnaire. The measurement of the fourth stage of group development had a strong association with the planning effectiveness measurement, which means that a team with less issues in the fourth phase of group development is more effective in adhering to its plans. On the other hand, group development and velocity showed no significant convergent validity. We conclude that the dynamics within software development teams might correlate to their ability to deliver the expected outcome as planned but not to their ability to develop tasks faster.
|
|
| 4. |
- Borg, Markus
(författare)
-
TuneR : A Framework for Tuning Software Engineering Tools with Hands-on Instructions in R
- 2016. - 15
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : John Wiley & Sons Ltd. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 28:6, s. 427-459
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Numerous tools automating various aspects of software engineering have been developed, and many of the tools are highly configurable through parameters. Understanding the parameters of advanced tools often requires deep understanding of complex algorithms. Unfortunately, suboptimal parameter settings limit the performance of tools and hinder industrial adaptation, but still few studies address the challenge of tuning software engineering tools. We present TuneR, an experiment framework that supports finding feasible parameter settings using empirical methods. The framework is accompanied by practical guidelines of how to use R to analyze the experimental outcome. As a proof-of-concept, we apply TuneR to tune ImpRec, a recommendation system for change impact analysis in a software system that has evolved for more than two decades. Compared with the output from the default setting, we report a 20.9% improvement in the response variable reflecting recommendation accuracy. Moreover, TuneR reveals insights into the interaction among parameters, as well as nonlinear effects. TuneR is easy to use, thus the framework has potential to support tuning of software engineering tools in both academia and industry.
|
|
| 5. |
- Bosch, Jan, 1967, et al.
(författare)
-
Digital for real: A multicase study on the digital transformation of companies in the embedded systems domain
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software: Evolution and Process. - : Wiley. - 2047-7481 .- 2047-7473. ; 33:5
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With digitalization and with technologies such as software, data, and artificial intelligence, companies in the embedded systems domain are experiencing a rapid transformation of their conventional businesses. While the physical products and associated product sales provide the core revenue, these are increasingly being complemented with service offerings, new data-driven services, and digital products that allow for continuous value creation and delivery to customers. However, although there is significant research on digitalization and digital transformation, few studies highlight the specific needs of embedded systems companies and what it takes to transform from a traditional towards a digital company within business domains characterized by high complexity, hardware dependencies, and safety-critical system functionality. In this paper, we capture the difference between what constitutes a traditional and a digital company and we detail the typical evolution path embedded systems companies take when transitioning towards becoming digital companies.
|
|
| 6. |
- Bosch, Jan, 1967, et al.
(författare)
-
Ecosystem traps and where to find them
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software: Evolution and Process. - : Wiley. - 2047-7481 .- 2047-7473. ; 30:11
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Today, companies operate in business ecosystems where they collaborate, compete, share, and learn from others with benefits such as to present more attractive offerings and sharing innovation costs. With ecosystems being the new way of operating, the ability to strategically reposition oneself to increase or shift power balance is becoming key for competitive advantage. However, companies run into a number of traps when trying to realize strategical changes in their ecosystems. In this paper, we identify 5 traps that companies fall into. First, the “descriptive versus prescriptive trap” is when companies assume that current boundaries between partners are immutable. Second, the “assumptions trap” is when powerful ecosystem partners assume that they understand what others regard as value-adding without validating their assumptions. Third, the “keeping it too simple trap” is when companies overlooks the effort required to align interests. Fourth, the “doing it all at once trap” is when companies disrupt an ecosystem assuming that all partners can change direction at the same time. Finally, the “planning trap” is when companies are unable to move forward without a complete plan. We provide empirical evidence for each trap, and we propose an ecosystem engagement process for how to avoid falling into these.
|
|
| 7. |
- Britto, Ricardo, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
-
Onboarding Software Developers and Teams in Three Globally Distributed Legacy Projects : A Multi-Case Study
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 30:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Onboarding is the process of supporting new employees regarding their social and performance adjustment to their new job. Software companies have faced challenges with recruitment and onboarding of new team members and there is no study that investigates it in a holistic way. In this paper, we conducted a multi-case study to investigate the onboarding of software developers/teams, associated challenges, and areas for further improvement in three globally distributed legacy projects. We employed Bauer's model for onboarding to identify the current state of the onboarding strategies employed in each case. We learned that the employed strategies are semi-formalized. Besides, in projects with multiple sites, some functions are executed locally and the onboarding outcomes may be hard to control. We also learned that onboarding in legacy projects is especially challenging and that decisions to distribute such projects across multiple locations shall be approached carefully. In our cases, the challenges to learn legacy code were further amplified by the project scale and the distance to the original sources of knowledge. Finally, we identified practices that can be used by companies to increase the chances of being successful when onboarding software developers and teams in globally distributed legacy projects.
|
|
| 8. |
- Bucaioni, Alessio, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
-
Model-based generation of test scripts across product variants : An experience report from the railway industry
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : John Wiley and Sons Ltd. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 34:11
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software product line engineering emerged as an effective approach for the development of families of software-intensive systems in several industries. Although its use has been widely discussed and researched, there are still several open challenges for its industrial adoption and application. One of these is how to efficiently develop and reuse shared software artifacts, which have dependencies on the underlying electrical and hardware systems of products in a family. In this work, we report on our experience in tackling such a challenge in the railway industry and present a model-based approach for the automatic generation of test scripts for product variants in software product lines. The proposed approach is the result of an effort leveraging the experiences and results from the technology transfer activities with our industrial partner Alstom SA in Sweden. We applied and evaluated the proposed approach on the Aventra software product line from Alstom SA. The evaluation showed that the proposed approach mitigates the development effort, development time, and consistency drawbacks associated with the traditional, manual creation of test scripts. We performed an online survey involving 37 engineers from Alstom SA for collecting feedback on the approach. The result of the survey further confirms the aforementioned benefits. © 2022 The Authors.
|
|
| 9. |
- Bucaioni, Alessio, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
-
Reference architectures modelling and compliance checking
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : WILEY. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reference architectures (RAs) are successfully used to represent families of concrete software architectures in several domains such as automotive, banking, and the Internet of Things. RAs inspire architects when designing concrete architectures, and they help to guarantee compliance with architectural decisions, regulatory requirements, as well as architectural qualities. Despite their importance, reference architectures still suffer from a number of open technical issues, including (i) the lack of a common interpretation, a precise notation for their representation and documentation, and (ii) the lack of conformance mechanisms for checking the compliance of concrete architectures to their related reference architecture, architectural decisions, regulatory requirements, etc. This paper addresses these two issues by introducing a model-driven approach that leverages (i) a domain-independent metamodel for the representation of reference architectures and (ii) the combination of model transformation and weaving techniques for the automatic conformance checking of concrete architectures. We evaluate the applicability, effectiveness, and generalizability of our approach using illustrative examples from the web browsers and automotive domains, including an assessment from an independent practitioner.
|
|
| 10. |
- Capilla, Rafael, et al.
(författare)
-
Opportunities for Software Reuse in an Uncertain World : From Past to Emerging Trends
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Journal of Software. - : Wiley. - 2047-7473 .- 2047-7481. ; 31:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Much has been investigated about software reuse since the software crisis. The development of software reuse methods, implementation techniques, and cost models has resulted in a significant amount of research over years. Nevertheless, the increasing adoption of reuse techniques, many of them subsumed under higher level software engineering processes, and advanced programming techniques that ease the way to reuse software assets, have hidden somehow in the recent years new research trends on the practice of reuse and caused the disappearance of several reuse conferences. Also, new forms of reuse like open data and feature models have brought new opportunities for reuse beyond the traditional software components. From past to present, we summarize in this research the recent history of software reuse, and we report new research areas and forms of reuse according to current needs in industry and application domains, as well as promising research trends for the upcoming years.
|
|
