Professional Software Engineers Research Articles

Improving the success rate of applying the extract method refactoring

• A technique to improve the success rate of applying the extract method refactoring. • An empirical study about usability and refactoring tools. • A tool that proposes alternative text selection for source code refactoring. • An empirical evaluation of the proposed tool. Context: Most modern programming environments support refactorings. Although refactorings are relevant to improve the quality of software source code, they unfortunately suffer from severe usability issues. In particular, the extract method refactoring, one of the most prominent refactorings, has a failure rate of 49% when users attempt to use it. Objective: Our main objective is to improve the success rate of applying the extract method refactoring. Methods: First, to understand the cause of refactoring failure, we conducted a partial replication of Vakilian's ICSE '14 study about usability issues of refactoring using IntelliJ IDEA. Second, we designed and implemented TOAD, a tool that proposes alternative text selection for source code refactoring for the Pharo programming language. Third, we evaluated TOAD using a controlled experiment against the standard Pharo code refactoring tool. Seven professional software engineers complemented with three undergrad students participated in our experiments. Conclusion: The causes we identified of failed extract method refactoring attempts match Vakilian's work. TOAD significantly reduces the number of failed attempts to run the extract method refactoring at a lower cognitive load cost.

On Practice of Promoting Learning by Competition in Software Engineering

This paper analyzes the status quo of practical teaching in software engineering, explains the significance of carrying out "promoting learning by competition", and puts forward a software engineering talent training program based on "promoting learning by competition", and has practiced in software engineering, got a good result. This study examines current teaching of software engineering and analyzes the implications of promoting learning by competition. In recent years, “study to promote learning by competition”, “to practice by competition” and “training by competition” have become an important means for the cultivation of practical ability of college students. A large number of college teachers engaged in teaching work have carried out theoretical, applied research and practice on "study to promote learning" from different angles. Lao Yi et al analyzed the theoretical connotation of the idea of “study to promote learning” and the significance of competition. It is believed that colleges and universities should pay attention to the training method of “promoting learning by competition”, and should adhere to the guidelines of competition and teaching, and promote learning in the game. "The mode of improving the faculty level" [1]; Zhu Lina, Qiu Shufen, and Mao Ning each conducted research and practice on the training mode of "professional training" in clothing-related majors, and found that they were supplemented by "sports training" in teaching. Teaching methods can improve students' design practice and innovation ability, and students can better adapt to market demand [2-4]; Ma Xiaomin and other researches find that “to practice by competition, training by competition” can strengthen the teaching ability of physical education teachers [5]. On the basis of analyzing the current situation of student competition and learning, Zhang Yingxi proposed to rationally formulate computer training programs and competition plans, and improve the competition mechanism to ensure the implementation of the teaching mode of the game, and believe that the significance of promoting the game is Change the teacher's knowledge structure, improve students' study habits, interests and methods, and reform school teaching organization and management [6]. In the software engineering profession, the authors practiced the students in different grades in the form of “promoting learning by competition”. The specific practice is to directly promote the professional basic courses for the lower grade students, such as the ACM programming competition that can promote the learning of C programming courses, Java programming contest can promote the learning of Java related courses, computer works competition can promote students to improve their comprehensive ability, etc.; for senior students, set up professional clubs, participate in professional competitions in groups, improve comprehensive ability , achieved good results.

QuantumATK: an integrated platform of electronic and atomic-scale modelling tools

QuantumATK is an integrated set of atomic-scale modelling tools developed since 2003 by professional software engineers in collaboration with academic researchers. While different aspects and individual modules of the platform have been previously presented, the purpose of this paper is to give a general overview of the platform. The QuantumATK simulation engines enable electronic-structure calculations using density functional theory or tight-binding model Hamiltonians, and also offers bonded or reactive empirical force fields in many different parametrizations. Density functional theory is implemented using either a plane-wave basis or expansion of electronic states in a linear combination of atomic orbitals. The platform includes a long list of advanced modules, including Green’s-function methods for electron transport simulations and surface calculations, first-principles electron-phonon and electron-photon couplings, simulation of atomic-scale heat transport, ion dynamics, spintronics, optical properties of materials, static polarization, and more. Seamless integration of the different simulation engines into a common platform allows for easy combination of different simulation methods into complex workflows. Besides giving a general overview and presenting a number of implementation details not previously published, we also present four different application examples. These are calculations of the phonon-limited mobility of Cu, Ag and Au, electron transport in a gated 2D device, multi-model simulation of lithium ion drift through a battery cathode in an external electric field, and electronic-structure calculations of the composition-dependent band gap of SiGe alloys.

An Interview with Martin Jung, Head of Software Engineering Consulting at Development Group Basys GmbH and Professor at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen Nürnberg (FAU)

In 2012, Martin Jung founded Develop Groups Consulting Branch, with the intent of bringing professional software engineering know-how as a product to the market. Develop Group, a southern-Germany b...

Evaluating and empirically improving the visual syntax of use case diagrams

Use case modeling is a forefront technique to specify functional requirements of a system. Many research works related to use case modeling have been devoted to improving various aspects of use case modeling and its utilization in software development processes. One key aspect of use case models that has thus far been overlooked by the research community is the visual perception of use case diagrams by its readers. Any model is used transfer a mental idea by a modeler to a model reader. Even if a use case diagram is constructed flawlessly, if it is misread or misinterpreted by its reader then the intrinsic purpose of modeling has failed. This paper provides a two-fold contribution. Firstly, this paper presents an evaluation of the cognitive effectiveness of use case diagrams notation. The evaluation is based on theory principles and empirical evidence mainly from the cognitive science field. Secondly, it provides empirically validated improvements to the use case diagram notation that enhances its cognitive effectiveness. Empirical validation of the improvements is drawn by conducting an industrial survey using business analyst professionals. Empirical validation is also drawn by conducting an experiment using software engineering professionals as subjects.

Decomposing Composite Changes for Code Review and Regression Test Selection in Evolving Software

Inspecting and testing code changes typically require a significant amount of developer effort. As a system evolves, developers often create composite changes by mixing multiple development issues, as opposed to addressing one independent issue — an atomic change. Inspecting composite changes often becomes time-consuming and error-prone. To test unrelated edits on composite changes, rerunning all regression tests may require excessive time. To address the problem, we present an interactive technique for change decomposition to support code reviews and regression test selection, called ChgCutter. When a developer specifies code change within a diff patch, ChgCutter partitions composite changes into a set of related atomic changes, which is more cohesive and self-contained regarding the issue being addressed. For composite change inspection, it generates an intermediate program version that only includes a related change subset using program dependence relationships. For cost reduction during regression testing, it safely selects only affected tests responsible for changes to an intermediate version. In the evaluation, we apply ChgCutter to 28 composite changes in four open source projects. ChgCutter partitions these changes with 95.7% accuracy, while selecting affected tests with 89.0% accuracy. We conduct a user study with professional software engineers at PayPal and find that ChgCutter is helpful in understanding and validating composite changes, scaling to industry projects.

A Controlled Study of the Feasibility and Efficacy of a Cloud-Based Interactive Management Program Between Patients with Psoriasis and Physicians.

BackgroundDermatology patients continue to receive improved treatment, but for patients with psoriasis, there have been few studies on ways to improve patient management by improving communication with patients and their dermatologists. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of cloud-based interactive patient and physician management of psoriasis.Material/MethodsThe cloud-based platform was created by professional software engineers to educate and manage patients with psoriasis in a single hospital, where patients and research staff had a network platform for sharing data. A total of 79 patients with psoriasis were included in this study and were randomly divided into the control group (n=39) and the intervention group (n=40). Patients in the control group were given a psoriasis nursing manual and underwent regular follow-up. Patients in the intervention group were managed using the cloud platform, with the same management as the control group. The Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI), the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were used.ResultsCloud-based interactive patient and physician management resulted in clinical improvement, and reduced the degree of anxiety in patients with psoriasis and improved their physical and mental health. Patients in the intervention group had an improved understanding of psoriasis treatment, resulting in an improved relationship with the medical staff and improved treatment compliance.ConclusionsCloud-based interactive patient and physician management improved the mental health and quality of life for patients with psoriasis and allowed patients to manage their disease more effectively.

Taking a Studio Course in Distributed Software Engineering from a Large Local Cohort to a Small Global Cohort

One of the challenges of global software engineering courses is to bring the practices and experience of large geographically distributed teams into the local and time-limited environment of a classroom. Over the last 6 years, an on-campus studio course for software engineering has been developed at the University of Queensland (UQ) that places small teams of students on different features of a common product. This creates two layers of collaboration, as students work within their teams on individual features, and the teams must interoperate with many other teams on the common product. The class uses continuous integration practices and predominantly asynchronous communication channels (Slack and GitHub) to facilitate this collaboration. The original goal of this design was to ensure that students would authentically experience issues associated with realistically sized software projects, and learn to apply appropriate software engineering and collaboration practices to overcome them, in a course without significant extra staffing. Data from the development logs showed that most commits take place outside synchronous class hours, and the project operates as a temporally distributed team even though the students are geographically co-located. Since 2015, a course adapted from this format has also been taught at the University of New England (UNE), an Australian regional university that is also a longstanding provider of distance education. In this course, most students study online, and the class has to be able to work globally, because as well as students taking part from around Australia, there are also typically a small number of students taking part from overseas. Transferring the course to a smaller but predominantly online institution has allowed us to evaluate the distributed nature of the course, by considering what aspects of the course needed to change to support students who are geographically distributed, and comparing how the two cohorts behave. This has produced an overall course design, to teach professional distributed software engineering practices, that is adaptable from large classes to small, and from local to global.

Successes and Struggles with Computational Reproducibility: Lessons from the Fragile Families Challenge.

Reproducibility is fundamental to science, and an important component of reproducibility is computational reproducibility: the ability of a researcher to recreate the results of a published study using the original author's raw data and code. Although most people agree that computational reproducibility is important, it is still difficult to achieve in practice. In this article, the authors describe their approach to enabling computational reproducibility for the 12 articles in this special issue of Socius about the Fragile Families Challenge. The approach draws on two tools commonly used by professional software engineers but not widely used by academic researchers: software containers (e.g., Docker) and cloud computing (e.g., Amazon Web Services). These tools made it possible to standardize the computing environment around each submission, which will ease computational reproducibility both today and in the future. Drawing on their successes and struggles, the authors conclude with recommendations to researchers and journals.

An Empirical Study on Competitive Crowdsource Software Development: Motivating and Inhibiting Factors

Crowdsourcing is gaining more and more popularity among the academic and industrial community. Organizations are adopting this technological advent and increasingly crowdsourcing their tasks to the unknown individuals. However, in the context of competitive crowdsourcing software development (CCSD), crowdsourcing is still unexplored. Too little is presently known about what intricate developers to participate in crowdsourcing software development competitions. Most importantly, what kind of developers are more likely to participate? Such open questions remain to be explored. To this end, in this paper, we present the results of an empirical study conducted to investigate what motivates software developers to participate in CCSD and what inhibits software developers to participate in such competitions. An online questionnaire is sent out to more than 300 crowdsource software participants, of which 113 return valid responses. It is also sent to more than 150 industry practitioners, of which 75 return valid responses. The results suggest that the monetary rewards are not significantly important to motivate software developers to participate in CCSD. Instead, learning, social contacts, and peer recognition are more important. Besides the survey, we also analyze the historical data collected from one of the most popular software crowdsourcing platforms. The analysis results reveal that the Pareto principle holds for CCSD as well, and 0.9% of the participants win 86% competitions. The results support the premise that CCSD market is still at an early stage. Most of the professional software engineers do not participate seriously in crowdsourcing software development. Therefore, many crowdsourced tasks, especially complex tasks, may fail to receive any satisfying submission. These findings are worthwhile for the crowdsourcing platforms and companies who want to outsource their software development tasks to the CCSD platforms.

Software Engineering Professional Applied Talent Cultivation Mode Innovation Experimental Area Construction and Exploration

The paper is based on the theoretical research and practical experience of the reform and innovation of the applied talents training model of the software engineering major in our college. First, It introduced the related research work of our college in the construction of an innovative experimental area for the applicationoriented personnel training model for software engineering. Then, introduced some of the practices of our college in the construction of an innovative experimental area for the application-oriented personnel training model of software engineering, including the enhancement of students' software design capabilities under the guidance of the theory through the tightly coupled curriculum of knowledge and ability, and the use of case teaching to make the curriculum Teaching has realized the transition to application-oriented, through the innovative practice and practical training teaching system to enhance students' software development capabilities. The preliminary teaching practice shows that our school has a series of practices in the construction of innovative pilot areas for the application of software engineering professionals, which is in line with the ability of software engineering professionals to apply talents. It is expected that the practice of our school will provide inspiration for the construction of innovative experimental areas for application-oriented personnel training of other relevant majors.

A Call to Promote Soft Skills in Software Engineering

We have been thinking about other aspects of software engineering for many years; the missing link in engineering software is the soft skills set, essential in the software development process. Although soft skills are among the most important aspects in the creation of software, they are often overlooked by educators and practitioners. One of the main reasons for the oversight is that soft skills are usually related to social and personality factors, i.e., teamwork, motivation, commitment, leadership, multi-culturalism, emotions, interpersonal skills, etc. This editorial is a manifesto declaring the importance of soft skills in software engineering with the intention to draw professionals attention to these topics. We have approached this issue by mentioning what we know about the field, what we believe to be evident, and which topics need further investigation. Important references to back up our claims are also included. Software engineers take pride in the depth of their technical expertise, which separates them from the crowd. But, what makes a good software engineer? First, it is the technical knowledge of relevant methodologies and techniques (i.e. hard skills), as well as the skills necessary for applying that knowledge in practice. Second, but nonetheless important, it is a set of soft skills, in particular collaboration, communication, problem-solving and similar interpersonal and critical thinking skills that are expected from software engineering professionals. In other words, software engineers need both hard and soft skills in order to be successful at the workplace.

Situation analytics — at the dawn of a new software engineering paradigm

In this paper,I first review the seminal work by Thomas Kuhn — The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — and elaborate my view on paradigm shifts in software engineering research and practice as it turns 50 years old in 2018. I then examine major undertakings of the computing profession since early days of modern computing, especially those done by the software engineering community as a whole. I also enumerate anomalies and crises that occurred at various stages, and the attempts to provide solutions by the software engineering professionals in the past five decades. After providing such a background, I direct readers attention toward emerging anomalies in software engineering, at a severity level that is causing another software engineering crisis, and suggest a set of criteria for feasible solutions. The main theme of this paper is to advocate that situation analytics, equipped with necessary definitions of essential concepts including situation and intention as parts of a new computational framework, can serve as the foundation for a new software engineering paradigm named the Situation-Centric Paradigm. In this framework, situation is considered a new abstraction for computing and is clearly differentiated from the widely accepted existing abstractions, namely function and object. I argue that the software engineering professionals will inevitably move into this new paradigm, willingly or unwillingly, to empower Human-Embedded Computing (HEC) and End-User Embedded Computing (EUEC), much more than what they have done with traditional human-centered or user-centric computing altogether. In the end, I speculate that an ultimate agile method may be on the rise, and challenge readers to contemplate “what if" hundreds of thousands “end-user developers" emerge into the scene where the boundaries between end users and developers become much more blurred.

Experience of professional training of specialists in the field of education and information technologies of the Department of Informatics and Cybernetics

The paper, which is based on the analysis of scientific and methodological works of the Department of Informatics and Cybernetics of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol state pedagogical university, describes the experience of professional training of specialists in the field of education and information technologies in such specialties as «Computer Science», «Secondary Education. Informatics» and «Professional education. Computer Technology». It is concluded that during the last decade, scholars of the department have developed numerous scientific works: Ph.D. and doctoral dissertations, monographs, educational and teaching aids. The most current attention of the teachers, post-graduate students and doctoral students of the department is directed to problems of professional training of future teachers of informatics and future software engineers, as well as the substantiation and introduction of information and communication technologies to pedagogical education. In particular, the experience for solving problems of different initial level of knowledge and skills in information technology of future IT teachers is presented in the works of H. V. Briantseva, solving the problem of the insufficient level of technological culture of future computer science teachers is presented in papers of S. M. Pryima the formation of professional competence for future computer science teachers in the process of studying professional disciplines is performed in works of K. P. Osadcha, the formation of media competence for future teachers of informatics in pedagogical universities is described in papers of І. М. Naumuk V. V. Osadchyi has studied the issue of the substantiation and practical implementation of information and communication technologies in the training of future teachers. Different aspects of professional training ofr future software engineers are researched in the works of such scholars of the department as V. S. Kruhlyk, V. V. Osadchyi, S. V. Sharov, V. S. Eremeev and others.

Fostering soft skills in project-oriented learning within an agile atmosphere

ABSTRACTThe project-oriented and Agile approaches have motivated a new generation of software engineers. Within the academic curriculum, the issue of whether students are being sufficiently prepared for the future has been raised. The objective of this work is to present the project-oriented environment as an influential factor that software engineering profession requires, using the second year course ‘Software Development and Management in Agile Approach’ as a case-study. This course combines academic topics, self-learned and soft skills implementation, the call for creativity, and the recognition of updated technologies and dynamic circumstances. The results of a survey that evaluated the perceived value of the course showed that the highest contribution of our environment was in the effectiveness of the team-work and the overall development process of the project.

Is professional practice at risk following the Volkswagen and Tesla revelations?

With the world in economic crisis the headlong drive for efficiency and effectiveness together with resulting profit is the watchword. Such pressure might have resulted in real gains but has also led to unscrupulous or reckless actions. The tempering of such drive with ethical consideration is often neglected until there is a detrimental event causing public outcry which in turn places pressure on the actors to account for the reasons the event had occurred. This cause and effect map is commonplace. The Volkswagen emissions scandal and Tesla Motors public beta testing of the Autopilot software in their cars illustrate the drive for efficiency and effectiveness without proper ethical consideration. This paper focuses on the role of software engineers in such situations. An ethical analysis of the two cases is presented using the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. The findings, together with previously published analyses, are used to draw general conclusions and recommendations about the efficacy of the software engineering profession.

Data ideologies of an interested public: A study of grassroots open government data intermediaries

Government officials claim open data can improve internal and external communication and collaboration. These promises hinge on “data intermediaries”: extra-institutional actors that obtain, use, and translate data for the public. However, we know little about why these individuals might regard open data as a site of civic participation. In response, we draw on Ilana Gershon to conceptualize culturally situated and socially constructed perspectives on data, or “data ideologies.” This study employs mixed methodologies to examine why members of the public hold particular data ideologies and how they vary. In late 2015 the authors engaged the public through a commission in a diverse city of approximately 500,000. Qualitative data was collected from three public focus groups with residents. Simultaneously, we obtained quantitative data from surveys. Participants’ data ideologies varied based on how they perceived data to be useful for collaboration, tasks, and translations. Bucking the “geek” stereotype, only a minority of those surveyed (20%) were professional software developers or engineers. Although only a nascent movement, we argue open data intermediaries have important roles to play in a new political landscape.

Is professional practice at risk following the Volkswagen and Tesla motors revelations?

With the world in economic crisis the headlong drive for efficiency and effectiveness together with resulting profit is the watchword. Such pressure might have resulted in real gains but has also led to unscrupulous or reckless actions. The tempering of such drive with ethical consideration is often neglected until there is a detrimental event causing public outcry which in turn places pressure on the actors to account for the reasons the event had occurred. This cause and effect map is commonplace. The Volkswagen emissions scandal and Tesla Motors public beta testing of the Autopilot software in their cars illustrate the drive for efficiency and effectiveness without proper ethical consideration. This paper focuses on the role of software engineers in such situations. An ethical analysis of the two cases is presented using the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. The findings, together with previously published analyses, are used to draw general conclusions and recommendations about the efficacy of the software engineering profession.

Survey on <i>Essential and Accidental Real-Time Issues</i> in Software Engineering

Software product lines have recently been presented as one of the best promis-ing improvements for the efficient software development. Different research works contribute supportive parameters and negotiations regarding the prob-lems of producing a perfect software scheme. Traditional approaches or recy-cling software are not effective to solve the problems concerning software competence. Since fast developments with software engineering in the past few years, studies show that some approaches are getting extensive attention in both industries and universities. This method is categorized as the software product line improvement; that supports reusing of software in big organizations. Different industries are adopting product lines to enhance efficiency and reduce operational expenses by way of emerging product developments. This research paper is formed to offer in-depth study regarding the software engineering issues such as complexity, conformity, changeability, invisibility, time constraints, budget constraints, and security. We have conducted various research surveys by visiting different professional software development organizations and took feedback from the professional software engineers to analyze the real-time problems that they are facing during the development process of software systems. Survey results proved that complexity is a most occurring issue that most software developers face while developing software applications. Moreover, invisibility is the problem that rarely happens according to the survey.

The Research of Industry Evaluation Index System of Training Quality for Software Engineering Professional Degree Postgraduate

This article mainly proposes a relatively complete software engineering discipline postgraduate Education quality Evaluation system industry based on AHP，to solve the prevalence of a single body, the lack of software professional degree characteristics, lack of proper assessment methods of a series of problems. The established evaluation system is guided by the professional qualification certification, and in Shaanxi Normal University, college of computer science software engineering as an example, using the system to complete industry assessment and occupational qualification certification.