Toward understanding how developers recognize features in source code from descriptions
Pages 1 - 3
Abstract
A basic clue of feature location available to developers is a description of a feature written in a natural language. However, a description of a feature does not clearly specify the boundary of the feature, while developers tend to locate the feature precisely by excluding marginal modules that are likely outside of the boundary. This paper addresses a question: does a clearer description of a feature enable developers to recognize the same sets of modules as relevant to the feature? Based on the conducted experiment with subjects, we conclude that different descriptions lead to a different set of modules.
References
[1]
D. Cuddeback, A. Dekhtyar, and J. H. Hayes. Automated requirements traceability: The study of human analysts. In Proc. 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE’14), pages 231–240, 2010.
[2]
B. Dit, M. Revelle, M. Gethers, and D. Poshyvanyk. Feature location in source code: A taxonomy and survey. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 25(1):53–95, 2013.
[3]
T. Ishio, S. Hayashi, H. Kazato, and T. Oshima. On the e ffectiveness of accuracy of automated feature location technique. In Proc. 20th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE’13), pages 381–390, 2013.
[4]
P. Mäder and A. Egyed. Assessing the e ffect of requirements traceability for software maintenance. In Proc. 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM’12), pages 171–180, 2012.
[5]
M. P. Robillard, D. Shepherd, E. Hill, K. Vijay-Shanker, and L. Pollock. An empirical study of the concept assignment problem. Technical Report SOCS-TR-2007.3, School of Computer Science, McGill University, 2007.
[6]
J. Wang, X. Peng, Z. Xing, and W. Zhao. An exploratory study of feature location process: Distinct phases, recurring patterns, and elementary actions. In Proc. 27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM’11), pages 213–222, 2011.
Index Terms
- Toward understanding how developers recognize features in source code from descriptions
Recommendations
A field study of how developers locate features in source code
Our current understanding of how programmers perform feature location during software maintenance is based on controlled studies or interviews, which are inherently limited in size, scope and realism. Replicating controlled studies in the field can both ...
CODES: mining source code descriptions from developers discussions
ICPC 2014: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Program ComprehensionProgram comprehension is a crucial activity, preliminary to any software maintenance task. Such an activity can be difficult when the source code is not adequately documented, or the documentation is outdated. Differently from the many existing ...
Locating Features in Source Code
Understanding the implementation of a certain feature of a system requires identification of the computational units of the system that contribute to this feature. In many cases, the mapping of features to the source code is poorly documented. In this ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
November 2014
6 pages
ISBN:9781450318181
DOI:10.1145/2666358
- General Chairs:
- Tomoyuki Aotani,
- Kung Chen,
- Shigeru Chiba,
- Takashi Ishio,
- Program Chairs:
- Hidehiko Masuhara,
- Hongyu Zhang,
- Jianjun Zhao
Copyright © 2014 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 the author(s) 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].
Sponsors
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 16 November 2014
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Article
Conference
SIGSOFT/FSE'14
Sponsor:
SIGSOFT/FSE'14: 22nd ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
November 16, 2014
Hong Kong, China
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 84Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)2
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 23 Sep 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Get Access
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in