Abstract
Context. Code quality is a key issue in software development. The
ability to develop high quality software is therefore a key learning
goal of computing programs. However, there are no universally
accepted measures to assess the quality of code and current standards are considered weak. Furthermore, there are many facets to code quality. Defining and explaining the concept of code quality is therefore a challenge faced by many educators.
Objectives. In this working group, we investigated code quality as
perceived by students, educators, and professional developers, in
particular, the differences in their views of code quality and which
quality aspects they consider as more or less important. Furthermore, we investigated their sources for information about code quality and its assessment.
Methods. We interviewed 34 students, educators and professional
developers regarding their perceptions of code quality. For the interviews they brought along code from their own experience to
discuss and exemplify code quality.
Results. There was no common definition of code quality among
or within these groups. Quality was mostly described in terms of indicators that could measure an aspect of code quality. Among these indicators, readability was named most frequently by all groups. The groups showed significant differences in the sources they use for learning about code quality with education ranked lowest in all groups.
Conclusions. Code quality should be discussed more thoroughly
in educational programs.
ability to develop high quality software is therefore a key learning
goal of computing programs. However, there are no universally
accepted measures to assess the quality of code and current standards are considered weak. Furthermore, there are many facets to code quality. Defining and explaining the concept of code quality is therefore a challenge faced by many educators.
Objectives. In this working group, we investigated code quality as
perceived by students, educators, and professional developers, in
particular, the differences in their views of code quality and which
quality aspects they consider as more or less important. Furthermore, we investigated their sources for information about code quality and its assessment.
Methods. We interviewed 34 students, educators and professional
developers regarding their perceptions of code quality. For the interviews they brought along code from their own experience to
discuss and exemplify code quality.
Results. There was no common definition of code quality among
or within these groups. Quality was mostly described in terms of indicators that could measure an aspect of code quality. Among these indicators, readability was named most frequently by all groups. The groups showed significant differences in the sources they use for learning about code quality with education ranked lowest in all groups.
Conclusions. Code quality should be discussed more thoroughly
in educational programs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 2017 ITiCSE Conference on Working Group Reports |
| Place of Publication | New York, NY, USA |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Pages | 70-85 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-4503-5627-5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Publication series
| Name | ITiCSE-WGR '17 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | ACM |
Keywords
- code quality
- programming