On the use of static analysis to engage students with software quality improvement: An experience with PMD

Static analysis tools are frequently used to scan the source code and detect deviations from the project coding guidelines. Given their importance, linters are often introduced to classrooms to educate students on how to detect and potentially avoid these code anti-patterns. However, little is known...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET) pp. 179 - 191
Main Authors AlOmar, Eman Abdullah, AlOmar, Salma Abdullah, Mkaouer, Mohamed Wiem
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.05.2023
Subjects
Best practices
Codes
education
quality
Software quality
Source coding
Static analysis
static analysis tool
Training
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Summary:Static analysis tools are frequently used to scan the source code and detect deviations from the project coding guidelines. Given their importance, linters are often introduced to classrooms to educate students on how to detect and potentially avoid these code anti-patterns. However, little is known about their effectiveness in raising students' awareness, given that these linters tend to generate a large number of false positives. To increase the awareness of potential coding issues that violate coding standards, in this paper, we aim to reflect on our experience with teaching the use of static analysis for the purpose of evaluating its effectiveness in helping students with respect to improving software quality. This paper discusses the results of an experiment in the classroom, over a period of 3 academic semesters, involving 65 submissions that carried out code review activity of 690 rules using PMD. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis show that the presence of a set of PMD quality issues influences the acceptance or rejection of the issues, design, and best practices-related categories that take longer time to be resolved, and students acknowledge the potential of using static analysis tools during code review. Through this experiment, code review can turn into a vital part of the educational computing plan. We envision our findings enabling educators to support students with code review strategies in order to raise students' awareness about static analysis tools and scaffold their coding skills.
ISSN:2832-7578
DOI:10.1109/ICSE-SEET58685.2023.00023