SoHist: A Tool for Managing Technical Debt through Retro Perspective Code Analysis

Technical debt is often the result of Short Run decisions made during code development, which can lead to long-term maintenance costs and risks. Hence, evaluating the progression of a project and understanding related code quality aspects is essential. Fortunately, the prioritization process for addressing technical debt can be expedited with code analysis tools like the established SonarQube. Unfortunately, we experienced some limitations with this tool and have had some requirements from the industry that were not yet addressed. Through this experience report and the analysis of scientific papers, this work contributes: (1) a reassessment of technical debt within the industry, (2) considers the benefits of employing SonarQube as well as its limitations when evaluating and prioritizing technical debt, (3) introduces a novel tool named SoHist which addresses these limitations and offers additional features for the assessment and prioritization of technical debt, and (4) exemplifies the usage of this tool in two industrial settings in the ITEA3 SmartDelta project.