Industrial Code Quality Benchmarks: Toward Gamification of Software Maintainability

TL;DR

This paper explores using gamification via anonymous leaderboards to improve software maintainability by benchmarking code quality across organizations, aiming to motivate sustained focus on long-term code health.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of maintainability gamification through leaderboards and analyzes a large dataset to assess its feasibility.

Findings

CodeHealth score distributions vary across projects

Leaderboards can motivate maintainability improvements

Feasibility of benchmarking for gamification is supported

Abstract

Software maintainability is essential for long-term success in the software industry. Despite widespread evidence of the high costs associated with poor maintainability, market pressure drives many organizations to prioritize short-term releases. This focus leads to accumulating technical debt worldwide. In this preliminary work, we propose maintainability gamification through anonymous leaderboards to encourage organizations to maintain a sustained focus on code quality. Our approach envisions benchmarking to foster motivation and urgency across companies by highlighting thresholds for leaders and laggards. To initiate this concept, we analyze a sample of over 1,000 proprietary projects using CodeHealth scores. By examining the distribution of these scores across various dimensions, we assess the feasibility of creating effective leaderboards. Findings from this study offer valuable insights for future design activities in maintainability gamification.