Anti-patterns for multi-language systems

Multi-language systems are common nowadays because most of the systems are developed using components written in different programming languages. These systems could arise from three different reasons: (1) to leverage the strengths and take benefits of each language, (2) to reduce the cost by reusing code written in other languages, (3) to include and accommodate legacy code. However, they also introduce additional challenges, including the increase in the complexity and the need for proper interfaces and interactions between the different languages. To address these challenges, the software-engineering research community, as well as the industry, should describe and provide common guidelines, idioms, and patterns to support the development, maintenance, and evolution of these systems. These patterns are an effective means of improving the quality of multi-language systems. They capture good practices to adopt and bad practices to avoid. In order to help to improve the quality of multi-language systems, we analysed open-source systems, developers' documentation, bug reports, and programming language specifications to extract bad practices of multi-language systems usage. We encoded and cataloged these practices in the form of design anti-patterns. We report here six anti-patterns. These results could help not only researchers but also professional developers considering the use of more than one programming language.