Quality Factors and Coding Standards – a Comparison Between Open Source Forges

Article


Capiluppi, A., Boldyreff, C., Beecher, K. and Adams, P. 2009. Quality Factors and Coding Standards – a Comparison Between Open Source Forges. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. 233, pp. 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcs.2009.02.063
AuthorsCapiluppi, A., Boldyreff, C., Beecher, K. and Adams, P.
Abstract

Enforcing adherence to standards in software development in order to produce high quality software artefacts has long been recognised as best practice in traditional software engineering. In a distributed heterogeneous development environment such those found within the Open Source paradigm, coding standards are informally shared and adhered to by communities of loosely coupled developers. Following these standards could potentially lead to higher quality software.

This paper reports on the empirical analysis of two major forges where OSS projects are hosted. The first one, the KDE forge, provides a set of guidelines and coding standards in the form of a coding style that developers may conform to when producing the code source artefacts. The second studied forge, SourceForge, imposes no formal coding standards on developers. A sample of projects from these two forges has been analysed to detect whether the SourceForge sample, where no coding standards are reinforced, has a lower quality than the sample from KDE.

Results from this analysis form a complex picture; visually, all the selected metrics show a clear divide between the two forges, but from the statistical standpoint, clear distinctions cannot be drawn amongst these quality related measures in the two forge samples.

KeywordsCoding Standards; Open Source Software; software engineering; developers; SourceForge; KDE forge
JournalElectronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science
Journal citation233, pp. 89-103
ISSN1571-0661
Year2009
PublisherElsevier
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Anyone
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcs.2009.02.063
Publication dates
Online25 Mar 2009
Publication process dates
Deposited28 Sep 2009
EventInternational Workshop on Software Quality and Maintainability (SQM 2008)
Copyright holder© 2009, Elsevier Ltd.
Additional information

Citation:
Capiluppi, A., Boldyreff, C., Beecher, K., Adams, P. (2008) ‘Quality factors and coding standards - a comparison between open source forges.’ Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 233 (27) 89-103 Proceedings of the International Workshop on Software Quality and Maintainability (SQM 2008)..

Book titleProceedings of the International Workshop on Software Quality and Maintainability (SQM 2008)
SeriesElectronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science
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https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/86588

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Capiluppi, A., Boldyreff, C., et al (2008) SIWSQM.pdf
License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
File access level: Anyone

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