Visual notations in container orchestrations: an empirical study with Docker Compose

作     者：Piedade, Bruno Dias, Joao Pedro Correia, Filipe F. 

作者机构：Univ Porto Fac Engn Porto Portugal Univ Porto Fac Engn BUILT CoLAB Porto Portugal Univ Porto Fac Engn INESC TEC Porto Portugal 

出 版 物：《SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS MODELING》 (软件与系统模块)

年 卷 期：2022年第21卷第5期

页      面：1983-2005页

核心收录：

学科分类：08[工学] 0835[工学-软件工程] 0812[工学-计算机科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 

基　　金：Integrated Masters in Informatics and Computing Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering  University of Porto (FEUP) 

主　　题：Container orchestrations Infrastructure as code Empirical study Visual programming Docker Docker Compose 

摘      要：Container orchestration tools supporting infrastructure-as-code allow new forms of collaboration between developers and operatives. Still, their text-based nature permits naive mistakes and is more difficult to read as complexity increases. We can find few examples of low-code approaches for defining the orchestration of containers, and there seems to be a lack of empirical studies showing the benefits and limitations of such approaches. We hypothesize that a complete visual notation for Docker-based orchestrations could reduce the effort, the error rate, and the development time. Therefore, we developed a tool featuring such a visual notation for Docker Compose configurations, and we empirically evaluated it in a controlled experiment with novice developers. The results show a significant reduction in development time and error-proneness when defining Docker Compose files, supporting our hypothesis. The participants also thought the prototype easier to use and useful, and wanted to use it in the future.