IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v15y2023i7p232-d1183521.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigation on Self-Admitted Technical Debt in Open-Source Blockchain Projects

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Pinna

    (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy)

  • Maria Ilaria Lunesu

    (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy)

  • Stefano Orrù

    (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy)

  • Roberto Tonelli

    (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy)

Abstract

Technical debt refers to decisions made during the design and development of software that postpone the resolution of technical problems or the enhancement of the software’s features to a later date. If not properly managed, technical debt can put long-term software quality and maintainability at risk. Self-admitted technical debt is defined as the addition of specific comments to source code as a result of conscious and deliberate decisions to accumulate technical debt. In this paper, we will look at the presence of self-admitted technical debt in open-source blockchain projects, which are characterized by the use of a relatively novel technology and the need to generate trust. The self-admitted technical debt was analyzed using NLP techniques for the classification of comments extracted from the source code of ten projects chosen based on capitalization and popularity. The analysis of self-admitted technical debt in blockchain projects was compared with the results of previous non-blockchain open-source project analyses. The findings show that self-admitted design technical debt outnumbers requirement technical debt in blockchain projects. The analysis discovered that some projects had a low percentage of self-admitted technical debt in the comments but a high percentage of source code files with debt. In addition, self-admitted technical debt is on average more prevalent in blockchain projects and more equally distributed than in reference Java projects.If not managed, the relatively high presence of detected technical debt in blockchain projects could represent a threat to the needed trust between the blockchain system and the users. Blockchain projects development teams could benefit from self-admitted technical debt detection for targeted technical debt management.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Pinna & Maria Ilaria Lunesu & Stefano Orrù & Roberto Tonelli, 2023. "Investigation on Self-Admitted Technical Debt in Open-Source Blockchain Projects," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-20, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:232-:d:1183521
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/15/7/232/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/15/7/232/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simona Ibba & Andrea Pinna & Maria Ilaria Lunesu & Michele Marchesi & Roberto Tonelli, 2018. "Initial Coin Offerings and Agile Practices," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dénes László Fekete & Attila Kiss, 2021. "A Survey of Ledger Technology-Based Databases," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-22, July.
    2. Giuseppe Antonio Pierro & Roberto Tonelli & Michele Marchesi, 2020. "An Organized Repository of Ethereum Smart Contracts’ Source Codes and Metrics," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:232-:d:1183521. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.