research-article

Does the combined use of class and sequence diagrams improve the source code comprehension?: results from a controlled experiment

Authors:

Giuseppe Scanniello,

Carmine Gravino,

Genoveffa TortoraAuthors Info & Claims

EESSMod '12: Proceedings of the Second Edition of the International Workshop on Experiences and Empirical Studies in Software Modelling

Article No.: 4, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/2424563.2424569

Published: 01 October 2012 Publication History

Abstract

We present the results of a controlled experiment aimed to investigate whether the source code comprehension increases when participants are provided with UML class and sequence diagrams produced in the software design phase. The experiment has been conducted with Master students in Computer Science at the University of Salerno. The data analysis shows that the participants significantly better comprehend source code when it is added with class and sequence diagrams together.

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Cited By

Prasad PIyer SRobins AMoskal AKo AMcCauley RRobins AKo A(2020)How do Graduating Students Evaluate Software Design Diagrams?Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3372782.3406271(282-290)Online publication date: 10-Aug-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3372782.3406271
Baldassarre MCaivano DRomano SScanniello G(2019)Software Models for Source Code Maintainability: A Systematic Literature Review2019 45th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA.2019.00047(252-259)Online publication date: Aug-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAA.2019.00047
Fernández-Sáez AGenero MCaivano DChaudron M(2016)Does the level of detail of UML diagrams affect the maintainability of source code?Empirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-014-9354-421:1(212-259)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-014-9354-4
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Does the combined use of class and sequence diagrams improve the source code comprehension?: results from a controlled experiment
1. Software and its engineering

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cover image ACM Conferences

EESSMod '12: Proceedings of the Second Edition of the International Workshop on Experiences and Empirical Studies in Software Modelling

October 2012

57 pages

ISBN:9781450318112

DOI:10.1145/2424563

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 01 October 2012

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MODELS '12

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SIGSOFT

MODELS '12: ACM/IEEE 15th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems

October 1 - 5, 2012

Innsbruck, Austria

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EESSMod '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 9 of 18 submissions, 50%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 9 of 18 submissions, 50%

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Cited By

Prasad PIyer SRobins AMoskal AKo AMcCauley RRobins AKo A(2020)How do Graduating Students Evaluate Software Design Diagrams?Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3372782.3406271(282-290)Online publication date: 10-Aug-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3372782.3406271
Baldassarre MCaivano DRomano SScanniello G(2019)Software Models for Source Code Maintainability: A Systematic Literature Review2019 45th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA.2019.00047(252-259)Online publication date: Aug-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAA.2019.00047
Fernández-Sáez AGenero MCaivano DChaudron M(2016)Does the level of detail of UML diagrams affect the maintainability of source code?Empirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-014-9354-421:1(212-259)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-014-9354-4
Gravino CScanniello GTortora G(2015)Source-code comprehension tasks supported by UML design modelsJournal of Visual Languages and Computing10.1016/j.jvlc.2014.12.00428:C(23-38)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jvlc.2014.12.004
Fernández-Sáez AGenero MChaudron MCaivano DRamos I(2015)Are Forward Designed or Reverse-Engineered UML diagrams more helpful for code maintenance?: A family of experimentsInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2014.05.01457(644-663)Online publication date: Jan-2015
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2014.05.014
Salviulo FScanniello GShepperd MHall TMyrtveit I(2014)Dealing with identifiers and comments in source code comprehension and maintenanceProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/2601248.2601251(1-10)Online publication date: 13-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2601248.2601251
Scanniello GGravino CGenero MCruz-Lemus JTortora G(2014)On the impact of UML analysis models on source-code comprehensibility and modifiabilityACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/249191223:2(1-26)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2491912
Bavota GCanfora GPenta MOliveto RPanichella S(2013)An Empirical Investigation on Documentation Usage Patterns in Maintenance TasksProceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance10.1109/ICSM.2013.32(210-219)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSM.2013.32
Scanniello GGravino CTortora G(2013)An Early Investigation on the Contribution of Class and Sequence Diagrams in Source Code ComprehensionProceedings of the 2013 17th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering10.1109/CSMR.2013.51(367-370)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/CSMR.2013.51

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