Smells in Block-Based Programming Languages

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Smells in Block-Based Programming Languages

Conference Paper (2016)

Author(s)

Felienne Hermans (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Kathryn Stolee (University of North Carolina)

David Hoepelman (Student TU Delft)

Research Group

Software Engineering

Education Games Robot sensing systems Computer languages Programming profession

DOI related publication

https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2016.7739666 Final published version

To reference this document use

https://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b65cadad-d276-4c15-aedf-8b100b38a8d3

More Info

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Publication Year

2016

Language

English

Research Group

Software Engineering

Pages (from-to)

68-72

ISBN (print)

978-1-5090-0253-5

ISBN (electronic)

978-1-5090-0252-8

Event

2016 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, VL/HCC 2016 (2016-09-04 - 2016-09-08), Cambridge, United Kingdom

Downloads counter

152

Abstract

Code smells were originally designed for object-oriented code, but in recent years, have been applied to end-user languages, including spreadsheets and Yahoo! Pipes. In this paper, we explore code smells in block-based end-user programming languages aimed at education. Specifically, we explore the occurrence of smells in two educational languages not previously targeted by smell detection and refactoring research: LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 and Microsoft's Kodu. The results of this exploration show that object-oriented-inspired smells indeed occur in educational end-user languages and are present in 88% and 93% of the EV3 and Kodu programs, respectively. Most commonly we find that programs are plagued with lazy class, duplication, and dead code smells, with duplication smells being present in nearly two-thirds of programs in both languages.