Every software project carries baggage. Some call it shortcuts; others call it compromises. In the world of computer science, it has a more precise name: technical debt.
Technical debt is the accumulation of sub-optimal software development decisions over time as a result of time pressures or other competing demands. These decisions become “debt” and reappear as additional costs incurred when problems arise or when new features are added.
Dr. Jeffrey Carver, James R. Cudworth Professor and graduate program director in the Department of Computer Science, is part of a team that earned a $750,000 National Science Foundation grant to help students combat this phenomenon with a project called TD-Tutor.
TD-Tutor is a pedagogical tool designed to help students catch and identify potential technical debt scenarios.
“This tool will be most applicable to students who are taking courses with a significant software development component,” Carver said. “Rather than just telling the student exactly how to fix the problem, it will educate the student on “why” what they have done creates technical debt.”
The University of Alabama, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Virginia Commonwealth University worked together to design and deploy the TD-Tutor framework. It will also be implemented in computer science courses at UA, preparing future software engineers for the evolving needs of their fields.
“With the increase of AI and its impact on how we design and develop software, it is becoming even more critical for students to learn how to think critically about software. The use of TD-Tutor will help them learn more about technical debt, a concept that will only increase in importance as organizations increasingly rely on code generated by [large language models],” Carver said.