一句话：通过大规模现场研究，测量专业开发者超越 IDE 交互的程序理解活动，弥补以往受控小样本研究的不足。
程序理解在软件开发与维护中占据开发者大量时间，已有研究甚至表明其可占开发者一半的时间。然而，以往多数研究在受控环境下进行，或仅招募少量参与者，并且只考察 IDE 内的程序理解活动。实际上，开发者的程序理解活动远远超出其 IDE 交互。本文针对这些局限，对专业开发者开展大规模现场研究，收集并分析真实开发过程中的交互数据，以更全面地测量程序理解。研究指出，仅依赖 IDE 内交互会低估程序理解的广度与耗时，需要将 IDE 之外的活动纳入度量范围。该工作为后续程序理解测量提供了更贴近工业实践的研究设计。
During software development and maintenance, developers spend a considerable amount of time on program comprehension. Previous studies show that program comprehension takes up as much as half of a developer's time. However, most of these studies are performed in a controlled setting, or with a small number of participants, and investigate the program comprehension activities only within the IDEs. However, developers' program comprehension activities go well beyond their IDE interactions.
DOI 原文 ·
@inproceedings{paperbot4441,
title = {Measuring program comprehension},
author = {Xin Xia and Lingfeng Bao and David Lo and Zhenchang Xing and Ahmed E. Hassan and Shanping Li},
booktitle = {ICSE},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1145/3180155.3182538}
}