Towards the Definition of Patterns and Code Smells for Multi-language Systems

Abstract

Developers often combine multiple programming languages to build large-scale applications. They choose programming languages properly for their tasks at hand instead of solving all of their problems with a single language. Foreign Functions Interface allow code written in one programming language to access features available in another programming language. Multi-language systems benefits from several advantages. However, they also introduce challenges related to the development, comprehension, and maintenance of such systems. Software quality is achieved partly by following good practices---architectural styles, design patterns, idioms---and avoiding bad practices---design anti-patterns and code smells. Yet, a review of the literature shows that there are a few works that study developers' practices among multi-language systems. The heterogeneity of components introduces code smells at the source code level. While design patterns are defined as good solutions to a recurrent problem, code smells are defined as poor design and coding choices that can negatively impact the quality of a software program despite satisfying functional requirements. In this paper, we report four patterns and five code smells related to multi-language systems. Those patterns and code smells were extracted from open-source systems, developers' documentation, and bug reports. We encoded these practices in the form of patterns and code smells in the context of Java Native Interface systems.