Coding conventions are a means to improve the reliability of software systems. They can be established for many reasons, ranging from improving the readability of code to avoiding the introduction of security flaws. However, coding conventions often come in the form of textual documents in natural language, which makes them hard to manage and to enforce. Following model-driven engineering principles, in this paper we propose an approach and language for specifying coding conventions using structured models. We ran a feasibility study, in which we applied our language for specifying 215 coding rules from two popular rulesets. The obtained results are promising and suggest that the proposed approach is feasible. However, they also highlight that many challenges still need to be overcome. We conclude with an overview on the ongoing work for generating automated checkers from such models, and we discuss directions for an objective evaluation of the methodology.
Towards a Structured Specification of Coding Conventions / Rodrigues, Elder; Montecchi, Leonardo. - ELETTRONICO. - (2019), pp. 168-177. (Intervento presentato al convegno 24th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC 2019)) [10.1109/PRDC47002.2019.00047].
Towards a Structured Specification of Coding Conventions
Montecchi, Leonardo
2019
Abstract
Coding conventions are a means to improve the reliability of software systems. They can be established for many reasons, ranging from improving the readability of code to avoiding the introduction of security flaws. However, coding conventions often come in the form of textual documents in natural language, which makes them hard to manage and to enforce. Following model-driven engineering principles, in this paper we propose an approach and language for specifying coding conventions using structured models. We ran a feasibility study, in which we applied our language for specifying 215 coding rules from two popular rulesets. The obtained results are promising and suggest that the proposed approach is feasible. However, they also highlight that many challenges still need to be overcome. We conclude with an overview on the ongoing work for generating automated checkers from such models, and we discuss directions for an objective evaluation of the methodology.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
2019PRDC.pdf
Accesso chiuso
Tipologia:
Versione finale referata (Postprint, Accepted manuscript)
Licenza:
Tutti i diritti riservati
Dimensione
694.36 kB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
694.36 kB | Adobe PDF | Richiedi una copia |
I documenti in FLORE sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.