An empirical study of the systemic and technical migration towards microservices

Context: As many organizations modernize their software architecture and transition to the cloud, migrations towards microservices become more popular. Even though such migrations help to achieve organizational agility and effectiveness in software development, they are also highly complex, long-running, and multi-faceted. Objective: In this study we aim to comprehensively map the journey towards microservices and describe in detail what such a migration entails. In particular, we aim to discuss not only the technical migration, but also the long-term journey of change, on a systemic level. Method: Our research method is an inductive, qualitative study on two data sources. Two main methodological steps take place – interviews and analysis of discussions from StackOverflow. The analysis of both, the 19 interviews and 215 StackOverflow discussions, is based on techniques found in grounded theory. Results: Our results depict the migration journey, as it materializes within the migrating organization, from structural changes to specific technical changes that take place in the work of engineers. We provide an overview of how microservices migrations take place as well as a deconstruction of high level modes of change to specific solution outcomes. Our theory contains 2 modes of change taking place in migration iterations, 14 activities and 53 solution outcomes of engineers. One of our findings is on the architectural change that is iterative and needs both a long and short term perspective, including both business and technical understanding. In addition, we found that a big proportion of the technical migration has to do with setting up supporting artifacts and changing the paradigm that software is developed

20th Workshop on Automotive Software Engineering (ASE’23)

Software-based systems play an increasingly important role and enable most innovations in modern cars. This workshop will address various topics related to automotive software development. The participants will discuss appropriate methods, techniques, and tools needed to address the most current challenges for researchers and practitioners

Raising awareness for potential sustainability effects in Uganda: A survey-based empirical study

Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. In July 2019, we ran the 3rd International BRIGHT summer school for Software Engineering and Information Systems at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The participants developed a group project over the course of the week, which included the application of the Sustainability Awareness Framework. The framework promotes discussion on the impact of software systems on sustainability based on a set of questions. In this paper, we present the educational evaluation of the Sustainability Awareness Framework in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results indicate that the framework can provide supportive guidance of the societal and environmental challenges in the given context

Walking Through the Method Zoo: Does Higher Education Really Meet Software Industry Demands?

Software engineering educators are continually challenged by rapidly evolving concepts, technologies, and industry demands. Due to the omnipresence of software in a digitalized society, higher education institutions (HEIs) have to educate the students such that they learn how to learn, and that they are equipped with a profound basic knowledge and with latest knowledge about modern software and system development. Since industry demands change constantly, HEIs are challenged in meeting such current and future demands in a timely manner. This paper analyzes the current state of practice in software engineering education. Specifically, we want to compare contemporary education with industrial practice to understand if frameworks, methods and practices for software and system development taught at HEIs reflect industrial practice. For this, we conducted an online survey and collected information about 67 software engineering courses. Our findings show that development approaches taught at HEIs quite closely reflect industrial practice. We also found that the choice of what process to teach is sometimes driven by the wish to make a course successful. Especially when this happens for project courses, it could be beneficial to put more emphasis on building learning sequences with other courses

Catching up with Method and Process Practice: An Industry-Informed Baseline for Researchers

Software development methods are usually not applied by the book.companies are under pressure to continuously deploy software products that meet market needs and stakeholders\u27 requests. To implement efficient and effective development processes, companies utilize multiple frameworks, methods and practices, and combine these into hybrid methods. A common combination contains a rich management framework to organize and steer projects complemented with a number of smaller practices providing the development teams with tools to complete their tasks. In this paper, based on 732 data points collected through an international survey, we study the software development process use in practice. Our results show that 76.8% of the companies implement hybrid methods.company size as well as the strategy in devising and evolving hybrid methods affect the suitability of the chosen process to reach company or project goals. Our findings show that companies that combine planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase their process\u27 suitability by up to 5%

Green fabrication of stable lead-free bismuth based perovskite solar cells using a non-toxic solvent

The very fast evolution in certified efficiency of lead-halide organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells to 24.2%, on par and even surpassing the record for polycrystalline silicon solar cells (22.3%), bears the promise of a new era in photovoltaics and revitalisation of thin film solar cell technologies. However, the presence of toxic lead and particularly toxic solvents during the fabrication process makes large-scale manufacturing of perovskite solar cells challenging due to legislation and environment issues. For lead-free alternatives, non-toxic tin, antimony and bismuth based solar cells still rely on up-scalable fabrication processes that employ toxic solvents. Here we employ non-toxic methyl-acetate solution processed (CH3NH3)3Bi2I9 films to fabricate lead-free, bismuth based (CH3NH3)3Bi2I9 perovskites on mesoporous TiO2 architecture using a sustainable route. Optoelectronic characterization, X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy show that the route can provide homogeneous and good quality (CH3NH3)3Bi2I9 films. Fine-tuning the perovskite/hole transport layer interface by the use of conventional 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis (N,N′-di-p-methoxyphenylamino)−9,9′-spirbiuorene, known as Spiro-OMeTAD, and poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl - P3HT as hole transporting materials, yields power conversion efficiencies of 1.12% and 1.62% under 1 sun illumination. Devices prepared using poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl hole transport layer shown 300 h of stability under continuous 1 sun illumination, without the use of an ultra violet-filter

Progress on lead-free metal halide perovskites for photovoltaic applications: a review

ABSTRACT: Metal halide perovskites have revolutionized the field of solution-processable photovoltaics. Within just a few years, the power conversion efficiencies of perovskite-based solar cells have been improved significantly to over 20%, which makes them now already comparably efficient to silicon-based photovoltaics. This breakthrough in solution-based photovoltaics, however, has the drawback that these high efficiencies can only be obtained with lead-based perovskites and this will arguably be a substantial hurdle for various applications of perovskite-based photovoltaics and their acceptance in society, even though the amounts of lead in the solar cells are low. This fact opened up a new research field on lead-free metal halide perovskites, which is currently remarkably vivid. We took this as incentive to review this emerging research field and discuss possible alternative elements to replace lead in metal halide perovskites and the properties of the corresponding perovskite materials based on recent theoretical and experimental studies. Up to now, tin-based perovskites turned out to be most promising in terms of power conversion efficiency; however, also the toxicity of these tin-based perovskites is argued. In the focus of the research community are other elements as well including germanium, copper, antimony, or bismuth, and the corresponding perovskite compounds are already showing promising properties. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text

Software engineering whispers : The effect of textual vs. graphical software design descriptions on software design communication

Context:\ua0Software\ua0engineering\ua0is a social and collaborative activity. Communicating and sharing knowledge between\ua0software\ua0developers requires much effort. Hence, the quality of\ua0communication\ua0plays an important role in influencing project success. To better understand the\ua0effect\ua0of\ua0communication\ua0on project success, more in-depth empirical studies investigating this phenomenon are needed. Objective: We investigate the\ua0effect\ua0of using a\ua0graphical\ua0versus\ua0textual\ua0design\ua0description\ua0on co-located\ua0software\ua0design\ua0communication. Method: Therefore, we conducted a family of experiments involving a mix of 240\ua0software\ua0engineering\ua0students from four universities. We examined how different\ua0design\ua0representations (i.e.,\ua0graphical\ua0vs.\ua0textual) affect the ability to Explain, Understand, Recall, and Actively Communicate knowledge. Results: We found that the\ua0graphical\ua0design\ua0description\ua0is better than the\ua0textual\ua0in promoting Active Discussion between developers and improving the Recall of\ua0design\ua0details. Furthermore, compared to its unaltered version, a well-organized and motivated\ua0textual\ua0design\ua0description–that is used for the same amount of time–enhances the recall of\ua0design\ua0details and increases the amount of active discussions at the cost of reducing the perceived quality of explaining