On the importance of understanding the strategies that developers use

Authors:
Thomas D. LaToza;Brad A. Myers
Affiliations:
Carnegie Mellon University;Carnegie Mellon University
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2010 ICSE Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering
Year:
2010

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Abstract

Understanding the strategies that developers use during coding activities is an important way to identify challenges developers face and the corresponding opportunities for tools, languages, or processes to better address the challenges and more effectively support the strategies. After creating a design, evaluation studies often measure task success, time, and bugs to argue that the design improves programmer productivity. Considering the strategies that developers use while conducting these studies increases the likelihood of a successful test and makes the results easier to generalize. Therefore, we believe that identifying strategies developers use is an important goal. Beyond identifying strategies, there are also research opportunities in better understanding how developers choose strategies.