Improving software quality by managing technical debt and uncovering security vulnerabilities

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Software is of paramount importance to the success of almost every business, industry, and individual. It is imperative that quality software products are developed. However, to achieve short-term objectives such as a faster release of the software or lower development cost, software practitioners often take shortcuts during software development. Such workarounds are known as technical debt. If not properly managed, in the long-term, technical debt can lead to disastrous consequences such as increased maintainability cost, lower developer productivity, increased number of defects, and software deterioration (decay). Technical debt management typically consists of identification, assessment (cost and impact), and prioritization. This is usually followed by activities such as refactoring or reengineering of the code. While software quality with a focus on software defects has a rich research history, technical debt research has gained momentum over the last decade. The long-term objective of this research is to better manage technical debt by (1) investigating the design decisions that led to technical debt for more sustainable decisions in the future, (2) using technical debt, more specifically, code and architectural smells to uncover software vulnerabilities, and (3) analyzing developers' behavior to create developers' profiles by understanding their strengths and weaknesses concerning technical debt, for better resource allocation and customized training.  This research will train HQPs in various specialized skills: data mining, statistical analysis, machine learning, and empirical studies, to contribute to the ever-growing ICT sector in Canada, which had projected a shortage of 200 000 ICT professionals by 2020. By enabling the production of better quality software and with an increasing number of highly skilled HQPs, Canada will attract more companies to establish themselves here. This will boost the Canadian economy by increasing revenues in the ICT sector, which accounts for 4.8% of the 2019 national GDP. In addition, we will work closely with the local companies in Saskatchewan to help them improve their software quality.