Replication Package of paper titled "REST in Pieces: Code Quality Issues and RESTful Design Rule Violations in Student-Built Web Apps"

In Bachelor's degree programs in Computer Science, software quality is often given limited attention due to time constraints and the focus on foundational skills. Topics related to code quality are typically addressed only in Master's-level courses. However, many students enter the job market immediately after completing their Bachelor's degree, leaving companies responsible for filling these gaps. In such a context, it is important to understand: (1) from an educational perspective, what are the most common quality issues students introduce in their projects, and (2) from an industry perspective, what is the actual quality level of the code that companies can expect from recently graduated new hires. To this aim, we analyze 40 full-stack projects developed during a bachelor's course on Web Technologies. Each project includes separate modules for the frontend (implemented as a Single-Page Application) and the backend (implemented as a REST API). We apply an automated static analysis pipeline to detect code smells in both modules and assess compliance with key RESTful design rules.
Results show that students frequently introduce maintainability issues and REST design violations in their web apps. This provides useful insights for educators to refine curriculum content and underlines the importance of adopting linters and static analysis tools to improve web app quality.