Theories, tools and research methods in program comprehension: past, present and future

Storey, Margaret-Anne

doi:10.1007/s11219-006-9216-4

Cited by 91 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(78 reference statements)

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“…Thus, it is an illusion for project managers to focus on the professional status when recruiting a software design immigrant [19]. For practitioners, the fact that the students want to prove their know-how and that they frequently have class exams with short durations could justify their performance on accuracy and time spent.…”

Section: Rq3: Status Vs Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

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Professional status and expertise for UML class diagram comprehension: An empirical study

Soh

Sharafi

Plas³

et al. 2012

2012 20th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC)

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Abstract-Professional experience is one of the most important criteria for almost any job offer in software engineering. Professional experience refers both to professional status (practitioner vs. student) and expertise (expert vs. novice). We perform an experiment with 21 subjects including both practitioners and students, and experts and novices. We seek to understand the relation between the speed and accuracy of the subjects and their status and expertise in performing maintenance tasks on UML class diagrams. We also study the impact of the formulation of the maintenance task. We use an eye-tracking system to gather the fixations of the subjects when performing the task. We measure the subjects' comprehension using their accuracy, the time spent, the search effort, the overall effort, and the question comprehension effort. We found that (1) practitioners are more accurate than students while students spend around 35 percent less time than practitioners, (2) experts are more accurate than novices while novices spending around 33 percent less time than experts, (3) expertise is the most important factor for accuracy and speed, (4) experienced students are more accurate and spend around 37 percent less time than experienced practitioners, and (5) when the description of the task is precise, the novice students can be accurate. We conclude that it is an illusion for project managers to focus on status only when recruiting a software engineer. Our result is the starting point to consider the differences between status and expertise when studying software engineers' productivity. Thus, it can help project managers to recruit productive engineers and motivated students to acquire the experience and ability in the projects.

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Section: Rq3: Status Vs Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It relates both to the engineers' performance (or acquired skills) and the way to improve their skills. In software engineering, the study of expertise can help project managers recruiting design immigrants (designers new to a project, similar to "programmers new to a project" [19]). …”

Section: A Experts and Novices Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional status and expertise for UML class diagram comprehension: An empirical study

Soh

Sharafi

Plas³

et al. 2012

2012 20th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC)

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“…Furthermore, programmers use different types of problem-solving activities when initially considering a programming problem, examples being the top-down, bottom-up and integrated strategies. The top-down approach addresses the 'big picture' and subsequently decomposes it into smaller subproblems (Storey, 2006). By contrast, when using the bottom-up strategy, programmers focus initially on details of the individual parts that are combined into higher-level abstractions (Storey, 2006).…”

Section: Knowledge and Strategies Used In The Programming Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The top-down approach addresses the 'big picture' and subsequently decomposes it into smaller subproblems (Storey, 2006). By contrast, when using the bottom-up strategy, programmers focus initially on details of the individual parts that are combined into higher-level abstractions (Storey, 2006). The integrated strategy combines top-down and bottom-up strategies in different levels of abstraction.…”

Section: Knowledge and Strategies Used In The Programming Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking processes used by high-performing students in a computer programming task

Havenga

Villiers

Mentz

2011

TDSA

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Computer programmers must be able to understand programming source code and write programs that execute complex tasks to solve real-world problems. This article is a transdisciplinary study at the intersection of computer programming, education and psychology. It outlines the role of mental processes in the process of programming and indicates how successful thinking processes can support computer science students in writing correct and well-defined programs. A mixed methods approach was used to better understand the thinking activities and programming processes of participating students. Data collection involved both computer programs and students' reflective thinking processes recorded in their journals. This enabled analysis of psychological dimensions of participants' thinking processes and their problem-solving activities as they considered a programming problem. Findings indicate that the cognitive, reflective and psychological processes used by high-performing programmers contributed to their success in solving a complex programming problem. Based on the thinking processes of high performers, we propose a model of integrated thinking processes, which can support computer programming students. Keywords:Computer programming, education, mixed methods research, thinking processes. Disciplines:Computer programming, education, psychology. IntroductionThe research described in this article lies at the intersection of computer programming, education and psychology. It is an inter-disciplinary study that investigates how the thinking processes and strategies used by high-performing student programmers foster the development of correct computer programs.The primary aim of a computer programmer is to write correct, high quality computer programs that solve real-world problems effectively and efficiently. A computer program is a human artefact comprising language-specific rules, formulated in the so-called source code of a particular programming language. This coded language communicates functionality that the computer hardware can 'understand'. By 'syntax' of a program, we refer to expressions, statements and program units, whereas 'semantics' refer to the meaning of those expressions, statements and program units (Sebesta, 2008). Syntax and semantics are closely related, and the specific way in which programming

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“…Programmers need to go through diAEerent stages, such as coming to an understanding of desired behavior, gathering relevant information, and testing hypotheses [3]. At each of these diAEerent stages, they usually need to develop goals, hypotheses, and ask questions [15,3,14]. Moreover, in a large software system, task-related information is often scattered around in diAEerent places [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An industrial case study of Coman's automated task detection algorithm: What Worked, What Didn't, and Why

Zou

Godfrey

2012

2012 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM)

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Programmer interaction histories are event sequences that have been culled from the use of instrumented IDEs, and can be mined to better understand the work habits of developers. A prerequisite for this analysis is an understanding of where the boundaries between distinct tasks lie. Asking developers to indicate manually when they switch tasks is disruptive to their normal work flow, so researchers have sought ways to infer task boundaries automatically based on the content of the interaction histories. Coman previously reported a fully automated algorithm that achieved 80% accuracy in a lab validation study. In this paper, we evaluate the use of Coman's algorithm within an industrial setting. We found two problems: first, a large number of the tasks identified are in fact only sessions of a larger task; second, the demonstrable eAEects of interruptions are not considered. We argue that the problem of task boundary detection consists of two subproblems: first, detecting task sessions; and second, linking task sessions. Coman's algorithm eAEectively addresses the first, while the second remains unsolved.

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Theories, tools and research methods in program comprehension: past, present and future

Cited by 91 publications

References 73 publications

Professional status and expertise for UML class diagram comprehension: An empirical study

Professional status and expertise for UML class diagram comprehension: An empirical study

Thinking processes used by high-performing students in a computer programming task

An industrial case study of Coman's automated task detection algorithm: What Worked, What Didn't, and Why

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