Context:

Architectural decisions are considered one of the most common sources of technical debt (TD). Thus, it is necessary to understand how TD is perceived by software architects, particularly, the practices supporting the elimination of debt items from projects, and the practices used to reduce the chances of TD occurrence.

Objective:

This paper investigates the most commonly used practices to pay off TD and to prevent debt occurrence in software projects from the architect’s point of view.

Method:

We used the available data from InsighTD, which is a globally distributed family of industrial surveys on the causes, effects, and management of TD. We analyze responses from a corpus of 72 software architects from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and the United States.

Results:

Results showed that refactoring (30.2%) was the main practice related to TD payment, followed by design improvements (14.0%). Refactoring, design improvements, and test improvements are the most cited payment practices among cases of code, design and test debt. Concerning the TD preventive practices, we find that having a well-defined architecture and design is the most cited practice (13.6%), followed by having a well-defined scope and requirements. This last practice is the most cited one for expert software architects. Finally, when comparing preventive practices among the three major roles derived from the survey (software architects, engineer roles, and management roles), we found that none of the roles shared the most cited practice, meaning that each role had its worries and focus on different strategies to reduce TD’s presence in the software.

Conclusion:

The lists of TD payment and prevention practices can guide software teams by having a catalog of practices to keep debt controlled or reduced.

中文翻译：

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软件架构师视角下的技术债务支付和预防

语境：

架构决策被认为是最常见的技术债务 (TD) 来源之一。因此，有必要了解软件架构师如何看待 TD，特别是支持从项目中消除债务项的实践，以及用于减少 TD 发生机会的实践。

客观的：

本文从架构师的角度研究了在软件项目中偿还 TD 和防止债务发生的最常用做法。

方法：

我们使用了来自 InsighTD 的可用数据，InsighTD 是一个关于 TD 的原因、影响和管理的全球分布的工业调查系列。我们分析了来自巴西、智利、哥伦比亚和美国的 72 位软件架构师的回答。

结果：

结果表明，重构 (30.2%) 是与 TD 支付相关的主要实践，其次是设计改进 (14.0%)。在代码、设计和测试债务案例中，重构、设计改进和测试改进是最常被引用的支付实践。关于 TD 预防实践，我们发现定义明确的架构和设计是引用最多的实践 (13.6%)，其次是定义明确的范围和要求。最后一种实践是专家软件架构师引用最多的实践。最后，在比较调查得出的三个主要角色（软件架构师、工程师角色和管理角色）之间的预防实践时，我们发现没有一个角色共享最多引用的实践，

结论：

TD 支付和预防实践清单可以通过拥有一个实践目录来指导软件团队控制或减少债务。