Timing is Everything! A Test and Production Class View of Self-Admitted Technical Debt

In this short paper, we investigate whether the “time of day” when recognised changes are made to code influences the self-admission of technical debt (SATD). We look at this question from a test and production class perspective. We examine if there is a specific time of day when technical debt is “self-admitted” more frequently and whether there are any similarities in this sense between test and production classes. We also analyse whether class complexity makes a difference to SATD occurrence. To facilitate our analysis, we used a data set of over 300k changes developed by Riquet et al., as a basis. Results suggest that a lower proportion of SATD occur in afternoons as opposed to mornings and that class complexity has a significant say in the role and application of SATD.