They tell me it's a suicide mission. I intend to prove them wrong." -Commander Shepard (Mass Effect)
PrefaceIdeally, in these few paragraphs, I would write about how my interest in computing has defined my life since I was young. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In the absence of quality IT education, I encountered programming relatively late, in the second year of university. But then I fell in love with it immediately. Solving programming challenges is like writing a story and thinking about the structure of the plot or the motivation of the characters. I adore both activities. That is why I decided to choose software engineering as my profession. I longed to learn its tricks at the highest possible level, therefore, I enrolled for PhD studies. I hope that throughout my many years of work, I have contributed to science and universal human knowledge.This work could not have been finished without the help and support of my colleagues. I thank my supervisor, Dr. István Siket, for his professional help and advice. By reminding me of the deadlines, he was able to continuously motivate me even in the most hopeless situations. He could always make a comment that helped me through the challenges of research life. I would also like to thank Dr. Rudolf Ferenc, the head of the Software Engineering Department, for supporting me on my way to becoming a PhD student. I am grateful to my co-author, Zoltán Ságodi, with whom we fought our way through the difficulties of call graph comparison. It was a pleasure to explore the world of code smells shoulder to shoulder with my other co-author and partner in PhD studies, Péter Gál. I am also thankful to Dr. Judit Jász and Ervin Kóbor for the work we have done together. Many thanks to my dear friend, Edit Szűcs for her stylistic and grammatical comments on this thesis. With her humorous remarks, she was able to make even the tedious work of correcting grammar enjoyable.Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, and my friends, András, Timi, and Adrienn, who have supported me on this hard journey. I am also grateful to my cats, Azi and Pamat for waking me up early every morning during the difficult period of working from home.