arXiv subjects

Bengt Haraldsson

Publications and source records attributed to Bengt Haraldsson.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

An Investigation of the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform from an Industry Perspective

The reliance on software as a distinguishing factor in the automotive industry is increasing. With a combined reliance on vendor-supplied software and cost-effective implementation, the AUTOSAR consortium was initialized to provide standardized platform specifications that enable re-use. Specifically, the AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform (AP) specification aims to provide a high-performance service-oriented architecture. Objective: The goal of this study is to investigate what pain-points emerge when developing AUTOSAR Adaptive applications and whether they originate from the platform specification, its vendor-implementation, or its local usage. Methods: We conduct a Design Science Research study, developing a minimal AP that serves as an experimental prototype for our investigation. Results: We find that a combination of specification-inherent, implementation-based, and local practices contributes to the emergence of pain-points. Conclusions: We conclude that there are AUTOSAR specification-inherent reasons for pain-points, resulting from architectural choices and re-use goals. The implication for development organizations is the need to mitigate these effects through tooling that better supports configuration file management and reduces developer training time to properly understand the adaptive application runtime life-cycle.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

Understanding Conversational Patterns in Multi-agent Programming: A Case Study on Fibonacci Game Development

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly applied to software engineering (SE), yet their potential for autonomous, role-oriented collaboration remains largely underexplored. Understanding how multiple LLM-based agents coordinate, maintain role alignment, and converge on solutions is critical for SE, as naively allowing agents to interact does not reliably lead to correct or stable outcomes. Recent empirical studies show that unstructured or poorly understood interaction dynamics can result in error propagation, premature consensus on incorrect solutions, or prolonged disagreement that prevents convergence, even when correct partial solutions are present early in the interaction. As an initial step towards addressing this underexplored area, we undertake a systematic analysis of conversations between two agents, a Designer and a Programmer across 12 model combinations from 7 open-source LLMs (Gemma 2, Gemma 3, LLaMA 3.2, LLaMA 3.3, DeepSeek-R1, MiniCPM, and Qwen3). Our systematic approach reveals three key dimensions of multi-agent interaction: efficiency (the speed and stability of convergence), consistency (the degree of role alignment visualized by BLEU and ROUGE), and effectiveness (the extent of compilation success and error resolution). Results show that the DeepSeek-R1:DeepSeek-R1 pair was unique in converging to the correct solution from the very first iteration and sustaining it consistently to the final iteration, while LLaMA 3.2:LLaMA 3.2 and Qwen3:Qwen3 demonstrated strong Designer:Programmer role alignment despite of diverging from the correct solution. The other pairs deviated from the task, never to converge to a result. These findings advance understanding of agentic programming and highlight the need for further research on understanding and calibrating convergence and stop conditions essential for future autonomous SE.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

Aspects of complexity in automotive software systems and their relation to maintainability effort. A case study

Context: Large embedded systems in vehicles tend to grow in size and complexity, which causes challenges when maintaining these systems. Objective: We explore how developers perceive the relation between maintainability effort and various sources of complexity. Methods: We conduct a case study at Scania AB, a heavy vehicle OEM. The units of analysis are two large software systems and their development teams/organizations. Results: Our results show that maintainability effort is driven by system internal complexity in the form of variant management and complex hardware control tasks. The maintainability is also influenced by emergent complexity caused by the system's longevity and constant growth. Besides these system-internal complexities, maintainability effort is also influenced by external complexities, such as organizational coordination and business needs. During the study, developer trade-off strategies for minimizing maintainability effort emerged. Conclusions: Complexity is a good proxy of maintainability effort, and allows developers to create strategies for managing the maintainability effort. Adequate complexity metrics include both external aspects -- e.g., coordination complexity -- and internal ones -- e.g., McCabe Cyclomatic Complexity.

cs.SE↗