Bad Smells in Industrial Automation: Sniffing out Feature Envy

• Published in: 2022 48th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA) pp. 346 - 349
• Main Authors: Sonnleithner, Lisa, Rabiser, Rick, Zoitl, Alois
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.08.2022
• Subjects: anti-pattern; Automation; bad smell; code smell; Control systems; CPPS; CPS; design smell; distributed control system; Feature Envy; Feature extraction; IEC 61499; IEC Standards; Maintenance engineering; measure; metric; Production systems; Software systems
• DOI: 10.1109/SEAA56994.2022.00061

Bad Smells are sub-optimal software structures or patterns. They can obstruct the understandability of a software system and cause maintenance issues. As a result, it is critical to avoid Bad Smells. While the subject is well-researched in software engineering, it remains an unresolved issue in industrial automation, e.g., when developing control software in the context of a Cyber-Physical Production System (CPPS). In this short paper, we present possible detection methods for Feature Envy, a smell that indicates bad modularization of a software system. We explain how these methods can be applied to analyze control software developed in IEC 61499. We present first results as well as next steps.