A Preliminary Critical Review of the Impact of Three Popular Development Practices on Source Code Maintainability

The maintainability of source code is a vital quality of resilient software systems and speaks to the ability of software engineering teams to modify source code quickly. For organizations seeking to build resilient software systems, it is crucial to consider source code maintainability because rapidly changing source code in response to new adversities is critical to the long-term resilience of software systems. In this study, we review relevant literature on three popular software development practices that aim to improve the maintainability of source code: test-driven development, refactoring, and pair programming. Our review provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses of these practices and highlights their potential role in enhancing the resilience of software systems.