Utilizing Complexity Metrics During Code Reviews to Promote Software Sustainability
James Willenbring, Gursimran Walia · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2023
Software sustainability is critical for Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) software. Highly complex code makes software more difficult to maintain and less sustainable. Code reviews are a valuable part of the software development lifecycle and can be executed to manage complexity and promote sustainability. We have developed a technique to guide the code review process that considers cyclomatic complexity levels and changes during code reviews. Using real-world examples, this paper analyzes metrics gathered via GitHub Actions for several pull requests and demonstrates the application of this approach in support of software maintainability and sustainability.