Related papers: How are identifiers named in open source software?…
When writing source code, programmers have varying levels of freedom when it comes to the creation and use of identifiers. Do they habitually use the same identifiers, names that are different to those used by others? Is it then possible to…
Following code style conventions in software projects is essential for maintaining overall code quality. Adhering to these conventions improves maintainability, understandability, and extensibility. Additionally, following best practices…
The use of programming languages such as Java and C in Open Source Software (OSS) has been well studied. However, many other popular languages such as XSL or XML have received minor attention. In this paper, we discuss some trends in OSS…
Before any software maintenance can occur, developers must read the identifier names found in the code to be maintained. Thus, high-quality identifier names are essential for productive program comprehension and maintenance activities. With…
Identifier names, which comprise a significant portion of the codebase, are the cornerstone of effective program comprehension. However, research has shown that poorly chosen names can significantly increase cognitive load and hinder…
This paper describes the results of a large (+1100 responses) survey of professional software developers concerning standards for naming source code methods. The various standards for source code method names are derived from and supported…
In software engineering (SE) tasks, the naming approach is so important that it attracts many scholars from all over the world to study how to improve the quality of method names. To accurately recommend method names, we employ a novel…
The emergence of online open source repositories in the recent years has led to an explosion in the volume of openly available source code, coupled with metadata that relate to a variety of software development activities. As an effect, in…
Unknowingly, identifiers in the source code of a software system play a vital role in determining the quality of the system. Ambiguous and confusing identifier names lead developers to not only misunderstand the behavior of the code but…
Background: The renaming of program identifiers is the most common refactoring operation. Because some identifiers are related to each other, developers may need to rename related identifiers together. Aims: To understand how developers…
Identifiers make up a majority of the text in code. They are one of the most basic mediums through which developers describe the code they create and understand the code that others create. Therefore, understanding the patterns latent in…
Code cloning plays a very important role in open-source software engineering. The presence of clones within a project may indicate a need for refactoring, and clones between projects are even more interesting, since code migration takes…
Renaming identifiers in source code is a common refactoring task in software development. When renaming an identifier, other identifiers containing words with the same naming intention related to the renaming should be renamed…
Consistency is one of the keys to maintainable source code and hence a successful software project. We propose a novel method of extracting the intent of programmers from source code of a large project (~300kLOC) and checking the semantic…
Naming is very important in software development, as names are often the only vehicle of meaning about what the code is intended to do. A recent study on how developers choose names collected the names given by different developers for the…
Program code contains functions, variables, and data structures that are represented by names. To promote human understanding, these names should describe the role and use of the code elements they represent. But the names given by…
Proper naming of methods can make program code easier to understand, and thus enhance software maintainability. Yet, developers may use inconsistent names due to poor communication or a lack of familiarity with conventions within the…
Comparison of programming languages is a common topic of discussion among software engineers. Multiple programming languages are designed, specified, and implemented every year in order to keep up with the changing programming paradigms,…
Identifier names convey useful information about the intended semantics of code. Name-based program analyses use this information, e.g., to detect bugs, to predict types, and to improve the readability of code. At the core of name-based…
Software design smells are design attributes which violate the fundamental design principles. Design smells are a key cause of design debt. Although the activities of design smell identification and measurement are predominantly considered…