✦ LIBER ✦

Towards a theory of the comprehension of computer programs

✍ Scribed by Ruven Brooks

Publisher: Elsevier Science
Year: 1983
Weight: 808 KB
Volume: 18
Category: Article
ISSN: 0020-7373
DOI: 10.1016/s0020-7373(83)80031-5

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

A sufficiency theory is presented of the process by which a computer programmer attempts to comprehend a program. The theory is intended to explain four sources of variation in behavior on this task: the kind of computation the program performs, the intrinsic properties of the program text, such as language and documentation, the reason for which the documentation is needed, and differences among the individuals performing the task. The starting point for the theory is an analysis of the structure of the knowledge required when a program is comprehended which views the knowledge as being organized into distinct domains which bridge between the original problem and the final program. The program comprehension process is one of reconstructing knowledge about these domains and the relationship among them. This reconstruction process is theorized to be a top-down, hypothesis driven one in which an initially vague and general hypothesis is refined and elaborated based on information extracted from the program text and other documentation.

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