In this issue

Abstract

In this issue, we have a special section and eight regular research papers. The special section is on trustworthy systems and software. I am very grateful to the guest editors, Sudipto Ghosh and Zhenyu Chen, for all their hard work on this special section. The guest editors have provided a helpful introduction to this special section to guide your reading. The first two regular research papers are linked by the common theme of code smells, and these are followed by a systematic literature review on risk factors found in software development. We then have two papers on the performance of developers followed by two papers on testing and one on the quality of modelling languages. In “A large-scale empirical study of code smells in JavaScript projects”, David Johannes, Foutse Khomh, and Giuliano Antoniol describe a large-scale study of JavaScript code smells to better understand how they impact the fault-proneness of applications. The results show that code smells do affect the quality of JavaScript applications negatively. The authors suggest that developers should track and remove smells early in the software life cycle. Systematic mapping studies help to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a research field. The paper “Software Design Smell Detection: a systematic mapping study” by Khalid Alkharabsheh, Yania Crespo, Esperanza Manso, and José A. Taboada analyzes 18 years of research into design smell detection. From the 395 papers analyzed, the authors report that there is a lack of human expertise and benchmark validation processes and also show that design smell detection positively influences quality attributes. They suggest that it would be helpful to have a reference repository of design smells labeled by experts. Systematic literature reviews are similar to mapping studies but usually follow rigorous protocols to provide a very detailed analysis of the literature. In “Risk factors in software development projects: a systematic literature review”, Júlio Menezes Jr., Cristine Gusmão, and Hermano Moura identify and map risk factors found in software development project environments. The authors conducted a systematic literature review and categorized 148 different risk factors. The results show that risk factors related to software requirements are frequently cited, together with a lack of technical skill. Software Quality Journal https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-019-09461-6