Exploring blueprints on the prioritization of architecturally relevant code anomalies - A controlled experiment

The progressive insertion of code anomalies in evolving programs may lead to architecture degradation symptoms. Several approaches have been proposed aiming to detect code anomalies in the source code, such as God Class and Shotgun Surgery. However, most of them fail to assist developers on prioritizing code anomalies harmful to the software architecture. These approaches often rely on source code analysis and do not provide developers with useful information to help the prioritization of those anomalies that impact on the architectural design. In this context, this paper presents a controlled experiment aiming at investigating how developers, when supported by architecture blueprints, are able to prioritize different types of code anomalies in terms of their architectural relevance. Our contributions include: (i) quantitative indicators on how the use of blueprints may improve process of prioritizing code anomalies, (ii) a discussion of how blueprints may help on the prioritization processes, (iii) an analysis of whether and to what extent the use of blueprints impacts on the time for revealing architecturally relevant code anomalies, and (iv) a discussion on the main characteristics of false positives and false negatives observed by the actual developers.