Theories, Methods and Tools in Program Comprehension: Past, Present and Future

Authors:
Margaret-Anne Storey
Affiliations:
University of Victoria, Canada
Venue:
IWPC '05 Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Program Comprehension
Year:
2005

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Abstract

Program comprehension research can be characterized by both the theories that provide rich explanations about how programmers comprehend software, as well as the tools that are used to assist in comprehension tasks.During this talk I will review some of the key cognitive theories of program comprehension that have emerged over the past thirty years.Using these theories as a canvas, I will then explore how tools that are popular today have evolved to support program comprehension.Specifically, I will discuss how the theories and tools are related and reflect on the research methods that were used to construct the theories and evaluate the tools.The reviewed theories and tools will be further differential according to human characteristics, program characteristics, and the context for the various comprehension tasks.Finally, I will predict how these characteristics will change in the future and speculate on how a number of important research directions could lead to improvements in program comprehension tools and methods.