DevDog: undergraduate thesis turns code smells into gamified learning
Luciano Ricardo da Silva Junior defended at FCTE/UnB an undergraduate thesis that gave rise to DevDog, a gamified web application for teaching code smell identification.
Brasília, June 11, 2026
Luciano Ricardo da Silva Junior defended, on June 11, 2026, the undergraduate thesis Gamification as a Teaching Strategy for Code Smell Identification, which gave rise to DevDog. The work was advised by Prof. Sergio Freitas and co-advised by Prof. André Luiz Peron Martins Lanna .
The thesis addresses a recurring challenge in Software Engineering education: identifying code smells requires repertoire, practice, and feedback. DevDog turns this process into a gamified experience, combining conceptual guides, contextualized exercises, suspicious-line marking, smell classification, and immediate feedback to students.
The application also uses rewards, progressive hints, and performance statistics to support sustained practice. In doing so, the thesis connects Gamification , software quality , and software architecture in an educational product focused on building code analysis and maintenance skills.
The work also led to the paper DevDog: A Gamified Web Platform for Teaching Code Smell Identification, accepted at the Tools Track of the 40th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES 2026), authored by Luciano Ricardo da Silva Junior, Prof. Sergio Freitas, and Prof. André Lanna.
DevDog is available at devdog.cedis.tec.br and can also be found on the DevDog page at CEDIS .
About CEDIS: The Center for Studies, Development, and Innovation in Software (CEDIS), linked to the University of Brasília, researches and develops innovative software solutions with work in education, gamification, and software quality.