Related papers: NRevisit: A Cognitive Behavioral Metric for Code U…
Background: Developers spend a lot of their time on understanding source code. Static code analysis tools can draw attention to code that is difficult for developers to understand. However, most of the findings are based on non-validated…
Reading code is an essential activity in software maintenance and evolution. Several studies with human subjects have investigated how different factors, such as the employed programming constructs and naming conventions, can impact code…
In code comprehension experiments, participants are usually told at the beginning what kind of code comprehension task to expect. Describing experiment scenarios and experimental tasks will influence participants in ways that are sometimes…
Code search engines usually use readability feature to rank code snippets. There are several metrics to calculate this feature, but developers may have different perceptions about readability. Correlation between readability and…
Well structured and readable source code is a pre-requisite for maintainable software and successful collaboration among developers. Static analysis enables the automated extraction of code complexity and readability metrics which can be…
Context: Developers spend most of their time comprehending source code during software development. Automatically assessing how readable and understandable source code is can provide various benefits in different tasks, such as task…
Unreadable code could be a breeding ground for errors. Thus, previous work defined approaches based on machine learning to automatically assess code readability that can warn developers when some code artifacts (e.g., classes) become…
Context. Code understandability is fundamental. Developers need to understand the code they are modifying clearly. A low understandability can increase the amount of coding effort, and misinterpreting code impacts the entire development…
Developers spend 70% of their time understanding code. Code that is easy to read can save time, while hard-to-read code can lead to the introduction of bugs. However, it is difficult to establish what makes code more understandable.…
Generative AI agents are reshaping human-computer interaction, shifting users from direct task execution to supervising machine-driven actions, especially the rise of "vibe coding" in programming. Yet little is known about how screen reader…
Understanding an unfamiliar codebase is an essential task for developers in various scenarios, such as during the onboarding process. Especially when the codebase is large and time is limited, achieving a decent level of comprehension…
Computational notebooks are the primary coding tools for data scientists, but their code quality remains understudied and often poor. Given the importance of maintainability and reusability, enhancing code understandability is essential.…
Background: Despite similar education and background, programmers can exhibit vast differences in efficacy. While research has identified some potential factors, such as programming experience and domain knowledge, the effect of these…
Motivation: Code understandability is crucial in software development, as developers spend 58% to 70% of their time reading source code. Improving it can improve productivity and reduce maintenance costs. Problem: Experimental studies often…
Previous works from research and industry have proposed a spatial representation of code in a canvas, arguing that a navigational code space confers developers the freedom to organise elements according to their understanding. By allowing…
Static code analysis tools and integrated development environments present developers with quality-related software metrics, some of which describe the understandability of source code. Software metrics influence overarching strategic…
Understanding how novices reason about coding at a neurological level has implications for training the next generation of software engineers. In recent years, medical imaging has been increasingly employed to investigate patterns of neural…
Observation is an essential tool for understanding and studying human behavior and mental states. However, coding human behavior is a time-consuming, expensive task, in which reliability can be difficult to achieve and bias is a risk.…
Code comprehension has been recently investigated from physiological and cognitive perspectives through the use of medical imaging. Floyd et al (i.e., the original study) used fMRI to classify the type of comprehension tasks performed by…
Program comprehension is a dominant process in software development and maintenance. Experts are considered to comprehend the source code efficiently by directing their gaze, or attention, to important components in it. However, reflecting…