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Definition and assessment of an Angular-specific Code Smells Catalog

Dear Software developer,

We are conducting a research study to establish and assess a robust and well-justified catalog for Angular-specific code smells. This survey aims to understand professional perspectives on the severity, frequency, and likelihood of resolution of various Angular-specific code smells, and additionally to assess the descriptiveness of the code smell names. We provide complete online documentation for each code smell including description, why it is a code smell, and examples of compliant and non-compliant code. Your insights will contribute to improving code quality assessment tools and practices for Angular applications.

We are seeking responses from software development professionals with practical experience in Angular development, code review, or Angular application maintenance. Your professional background and hands-on experience with Angular-specific code quality issues make your input particularly valuable for this research. Your participation is voluntary and greatly appreciated.

The format of the survey works best on a PC or laptop screen, but is not well-suited for mobile devices.

[If you have already reviewed this information, you may proceed to the beginning of the survey by scrolling down]

This research is sponsored by Universidad de Valladolid (UVa) and University Al-Balqa Applied University (BAU) and conducted under the supervision of Dr. Yania Crespo and Dr. Khalid AlKharabsheh. The study follows ethical research guidelines.

The raw data collected in this study will be published openly in our institutional repository to support research transparency and reproducibility. We do not collect any personally identifiable information from respondents. However, open-ended responses will be reviewed to ensure data anonymization before publication. If you would like to receive information about the study results and their publication, please contact us directly.

Contact Information: For questions, concerns, or if you would like to receive updates about the study results, please contact:

  • Dr. Yania Crespo
  • Email: yania.crespo@uva.es

The survey takes approximately [20-25] minutes to complete. All responses are confidential and will be used solely for research purposes.

The survey is best completed on a computer, where the format is more user-friendly.

Thank you for considering participation in this research. Your professional insights will contribute to advancing our understanding of code quality perception Angular based applications.

We look forward to receiving your feedback soon.
 
Thank you in advance.
Yours sincerely,

The Research Team

This research complies with ethical standards for human subjects research. Your responses will remain anonymous.

This survey is anonymous.

The record of your survey responses does not contain any identifying information about you, unless a specific survey question explicitly asked for it.

If you used an identifying access code to access this survey, please rest assured that this code will not be stored together with your responses. It is managed in a separate database and will only be updated to indicate whether you did (or did not) complete this survey. There is no way of matching identification access codes with survey responses.

Profile
Please, submit information on your profile in order to provide useful information for data analysis
(This question is mandatory)
How would you rate your level of experience as a developer?
[a, b) → left limit included, right limit not included
(This question is mandatory)
How would you rate your level of experience with frontend technologies?
[a, b) → left limit included, right limit not included
(This question is mandatory)
How would you rate your level of experience with Angular?
[a, b) → left limit included, right limit not included
(This question is mandatory)
How often do you follow Angular best practices and coding guidelines?
This scale reflects frequency. Never means not at all, Rarely means in very few cases, Sometimes indicates occasional but not consistent practice, Most of the time means in the majority of cases, and Always /Almost always means systematically, allowing for only minor exceptions.
(This question is mandatory)
Have you conducted or participated in code reviews for Angular applications?
Never means you have not conducted or participated in code reviews. Rarely means in very few cases. Sometimes indicates that you have conducted or participated in some cases (occasional but not consistent). Most of the time means in the majority of cases. Always/Almost always means systematically, allowing for only minor exceptions.
(This question is mandatory)
Have you worked on enterprise-scale Angular applications?

  1. Never – I have not worked on this type of application.

  2. Rarely – I have worked on this type of application in a few cases.

  3. Sometimes – I have worked on this type of application in several cases.

  4. Most of the time – I have worked on this type of application in the majority of cases.

  5. Always / Almost always – Practically all of my experience involves this type of application.

 

(This question is mandatory)
What versions of Angular have you worked with?
Angular-specific code smells

The following list Angular-specific code smells was obtained through a Multivocal Literature Review (MLR).

We would like your feedback on several aspects. First, whether the name of the code smell is sufficiently descriptive to convey its meaning (descriptiveness). Second, your assessment of its severity, frequency, and the likelihood of it being fixed in a typical software project.

Definitions:

  • Descriptiveness: The degree to which the code smell name clearly describes the problem it identifies, allowing a developer to intuitively understand what it refers to without requiring additional explanations.
  • Severity: The perceived importance of a code smell in terms of its potential negative impact on the system where it appears.
  • Frequency: The perception of how common the code smell is and how likely they are to encounter it in the software projects the respondent works on.
  • Likelihood to get fixed: A metric aiming to identify code smells that, while not necessarily highly severe, are perceived as straightforward to fix, providing a quick and easy way to reduce technical debt (quick wins).

Rating Scale:

  • Descriptiveness: (1 -Terrible, 5 - Excellent)
  • Severity:(1 - Minimal, 5 - Highly severe)
  • Frequency:(1 - Rare, 5 - Very Frequent)
  • Likelihood to Get Fixed:(1 - Unlikely, 5 - Very Likely)
(This question is mandatory)
Please rate descriptiveness of the name, severity, frequency and likelihood to get fixed for each Angular-specific code smell.
In case you need it, please open the code smell explanations in a new tab or window. Opening them in the same tab and returning to the survey may result in the loss of your previous responses.
Not using Lazy Loading (description: here)
Default change detection instead of OnPush (description: here)
Manual subscriptions (description: here)
Mixing Smart and Dumb components (description: here)
Include functions in templates (description: here)
Inheritance over composition (description: here)
Include logic in templates (description: here)
No usage of trackBy (description: here)
Include logic instead of rxjs operators (description: here)
Subscribe in constructor (description: here)
Duplicate state across components (description: here)
Multiple subscriptions (description: here)
Use a component in multiple modules (description: here)
ngOnChanges Misconceptions (description: here)
Give streams to child components (description: here)
Long import paths instead of aliases (description: here)
No usage of bundlers to reduce size of application (description: here)
Modify DOM directly (description: here)
Use stateful streams (description: here)
No usage of pipes (description: here)
Contribution and Tool Identification
(This question is mandatory)
What tools do you use or are familiar with for detecting code smells in Angular applications? You can provide any comment on the tool, its usage, or other tools names/references. 
Are there any other Angular-specific code smells that you have encountered in your professional practice? Please list them and give them a rating in Severity, Frequency and Likelihood to get fixed.
You can use this part if you would like to share any additional comments or feedback you have about this questionnaire, the code smells evaluated, or any other aspects of this study:
 
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