Related papers: Understanding Digits in Identifier Names: An Explo…
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…
Identifier names play a significant role in program comprehension activities, with high-quality names improving developer productivity and system quality. To correct poor-quality names, developers rename identifiers to reflect their…
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…
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…
With the rapid increasing of software project size and maintenance cost, adherence to coding standards especially by managing identifier naming, is attracting a pressing concern from both computer science educators and software managers.…
Identifier names are crucial components of code, serving as primary clues for developers to understand program behavior. This paper investigates the linguistic structure of identifier names by extending the concept of grammar patterns,…
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…
The names of variables and functions serve as implicit documentation and are instrumental for program comprehension. But choosing good meaningful names is hard. We perform a sequence of experiments in which a total of 334 subjects are…
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…
Identifiers, such as method and variable names, form a large portion of source code. Therefore, low-quality identifiers can substantially hinder code comprehension. To support developers in using meaningful identifiers, several…
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…
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…
Research scientists increasingly rely on implementing software to support their research. While previous research has examined the impact of identifier names on program comprehension in traditional programming environments, limited work has…
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…
Among the entities involved in software citation, software source code requires special attention, due to the role it plays in ensuring scientific reproducibility. To reference source code we need identifiers that are not only unique and…
In response to the prevailing challenges in contemporary software development, this article introduces an innovative approach to code augmentation centered around Impermanent Identifiers. The primary goal is to enhance the software…
Profiling tools (also known as profilers) play an important role in understanding program performance at runtime, such as hotspots, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. While profilers have been proven to be useful, they give extra burden to…
Developers must comprehend the code they will maintain, meaning that the code must be legible and reasonably self-descriptive. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of research and tooling that supports developers in understanding their…
Variable and function names are extremely important for program comprehension. It is therefore also important to study how developers select names. But controlled experiments on naming are hindered by the need to describe to experimental…
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…