Understanding the longevity of code smells: preliminary results of an explanatory survey

There is growing empirical evidence that some (patterns of) code smells seem to be, either deliberately or not, ignored. More importantly, there is little knowledge about the factors that are likely to influence the longevity of smell occurrences in software projects. Some of them might be related to limitations of tool support, while others might be not. This paper presents the preliminary results of an explanatory survey aimed at better understanding the longevity of code smells in software projects. A questionnaire was elaborated and distributed to developers, and 33 answers were collected up to now. Our preliminary observations reveal, for instance, that smell removal with refactoring tools is often avoided when maintaining frameworks or product lines.