Examining the evolution of code comments in PostgreSQL

Authors:
Zhen Ming Jiang;Ahmed E. Hassan
Affiliations:
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada;University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2006 international workshop on Mining software repositories
Year:
2006

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Abstract

It is common, especially in large software systems, for developers to change code without updating its associated comments due to their unfamiliarity with the code or due to time constraints. This is a potential problem since outdated comments may confuse or mislead developers who perform future development. Using data recovered from CVS, we study the evolution of code comments in the PostgreSQL project. Our study reveals that over time the percentage of commented functions remains constant except for early fluctuation due to the commenting style of a particular active developer.