Investigating the Social Representations of Harmful Code

Abstract

Context. Harmful Code denotes code snippets that harm the software quality. Several characteristics can cause this, from characteristics of the source code to external issues. By example, one might associate Harmful Code with the introduction of bugs, architecture degradation, and code that is hard to comprehend. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on which code issues are considered harmful from the perspective of the software developers community. Goal. In this work, we investigate the social representations of Harmful Code among a community of software developers composed of Brazilian postgraduate students and professionals from the industry. Method. We conducted free association tasks with members from this community for characterizing what comes to their minds when they think about Harmful Code. Then, we compiled a set of associations that compose the social representations of Harmful Code. Results. We found that the investigated community strongly associates Harmful Code with a core set of undesirable characteristics of the source code, such as bugs and different types of smells. Based on these findings, we discuss each one of them to try to understand why those characteristics happen. Conclusion. Our study reveals the main characteristics of Harmful Code by a community of developers. Those characteristics can guide researchers on future works to better understand Harmful Code.