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Cited by 20Software Engineering ResearchAdvanced Software Engineering MethodologiesSoftware Engineering Techniques and Practices

CODE reuse in practice: Benefiting or harming technical debt

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Feitosa, Daniel, Ampatzoglou, Apostolos, Gkortzis, Antonios, Bibi, Stamatia, Chatzigeorgiou, Alexander·2020·Journal of Systems and Software
DOI 10.1016/j.jss.2020.110618
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  • Previous research links code clones to increased technical debt.

    “and code clones to increased technical debt [55,56].”

    From Self-Admitted GenAI Usage in Open-Source Software (2026) · cites this paper as [56]

    The Interpretation of Results and Practical Considerations section reports that reused code has about three times the technical-debt principal of native code. However, the paper studies reused classes, not code clones specifically, and its Abstract reports lower technical-debt interest for reused code. It therefore supports a narrower link between code reuse and one measure of technical debt, not the claim about clones generally. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Authors
Feitosa, D., Ampatzoglou, A., Gkortzis, A., Bibi, S., & Chatzigeorgiou, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Groningen (NL)
  • University of Macedonia (GR)
  • Athens University of Economics and Business (GR)
  • University of Western Macedonia (GR)
Corresponding author
Feitosa, Daniel
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Systems and Software
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-09
Volume
167
Pages
110618
ISSN
0164-1212 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jss.2020.110618
OpenAlex
W3028257094
Cited by
20
References
1
Citations by year
2025: 6 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2
FWCI
2.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Systems and Software (publishedVersion)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Advanced Software Engineering Methodologies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
Keywords
technical debt, software reuse, open source software, software maintenance

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