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AN: 173847206
Title: Functional suitability assessment of smart contracts: A survey and first
proposal.
PublicationDate: 20231128
Contributors: Vacca, Anna; Fredella, Michele; Di Sorbo, Andrea; Visaggio, Corrado
A.; Piattini, Mario;
DocTypes: Article;
PubTypes:
CoverDate: Nov2023
PeerReviewed: true
Source: Journal of Software: Evolution & Process
IsiType: JOUR
DOIDS: ;
ISBNS: ;
ISSNS: 2047-7473;
PublisherLocations: ;
RecordType: ARTICLES
BookEdition:
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
PageStart: 1
PageEnd:
PageCount:
Volume:
Issue:
Abstract: Blockchain is a cross‐cutting technology allowing interactions among
untrusted entities in a distributed manner without the need for involving a trusted
third party. Smart contracts (i.e., programs running on the blockchain) enabled
organizations to envision and implement solutions to real‐world problems in
less cost and time. Given the immutability of blockchain and the lack of best
practices for properly designing and developing smart contracts, it is crucial to
assure smart contract quality before deployment. With the help of an exploratory
survey involving developers and researchers, this paper identifies the practices
and tools used to develop, implement, and evaluate smart contracts. The survey
received 55 valid responses. Such responses indicate that (i) inefficiencies may
occur during the development cycle of a smart contract, especially regarding
requirements specification, design, and testing phases, and (ii) the lack of a shared
standard to evaluate the functional quality of implemented smart contracts. To
start coping with these issues, the adoption of functional suitability assessment
measures recommended by the ISO/IEC 25000 standard, widely used in software
engineering, is proposed by adapting them to the context of smart contracts.
Through some examples, the manuscript also illustrates how to measure the
functional completeness and correctness of smart contracts. The proposed
procedure to measure smart contract functional suitability brings advantages to both
developers and users of decentralized finance or non‐fungible tokens platforms,
data marketplaces, or shipping and real estate services, just to mention a few. In
particular, it helps (i) better outline the responsibilities of smart contracts, (ii) uncover
errors and deficiencies of smart contracts in the early stages, and (iii) ensure that the
established requirements are met.
DOI: 10.1002/smr.2636
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Language: eng
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