On Coherence in Technical Debt Research : Awareness of the Risks Stemming from the Metaphorical Origin and Relevant Remediation Strategies

摘要

In this survey paper on the recent research, the authors evaluate consistency of the use of technical debt terminology and its convergence with the agreed-upon conceptual model. This consistency is important from the perspective of decision makers, who may delay or even abandon investment in a given area of the product, unless the benefits from repaying a specific technical debt are clear enough. Additionally, the paper discusses a degree in which the metaphorical origins of the technical debt term are still present and influence the research. The analysis is focused on the selected conference papers and offers a view on the inherent dynamics behind shaping the technical debt concept and its conceptual model. Besides, by discussing aspects related to cognitive linguistics, this study provides the means to understand this dynamics and equip the reader with suggestions to decrease ambiguity in the research.The results of the research lead to the following conclusions: 1. Ambiguity stemming from the origin of metaphorical expression of technical debt still exists in the research and there is a need to decrease it by e.g. framing, clarification, and explicit limitation of the research field. 2. Tool designers, such as SonarQube, are not bound by the research results and lead to more confusion in defining technical debt. 3. Risk Management models should be applied to enable technical debt management by decision makers. Thus, Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method and other Quality Attribute Models may serve as good references to expand the current technical debt model. Even though some ambiguity is still present, the technical debt concept as a software development artifact and agreed-upon conceptual model provide a consistent approach for interpretation and analysis of technical debt phenomenon. Notably, code smells can be mapped to a list of symptoms of technical debt items.