The effects of comments and identifier names on program comprehensibility: An experimental investigation

Journal of Programming Languages

Volumn 4, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 143-167

  Takang, Armstrong A ^a   Grubb, Penny A ^a   Macredie, Robert D ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HULL   (United Kingdom)

^b BRUNEL UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Comments; Experimentation; Identifier names; Program comprehensibility; Software maintenance

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141469635     PISSN: 09639306     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. G. Alkhatib. The maintenance problem of application software: An empirical analysis. Journal of Software Maintenance: Research and Practice, 1 (1992) 83-104.
2. L. J. Arthur. Software Evolution: The Software Maintenance Challenge (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1988).
3. B. P. Lientz and E. B. Swanson. Software Maintenance Management (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1980).
4. G. Parikh. Handbook of Software Maintenance (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1986).
5. A. A. Takang and P. A. Grubb. Software Maintenance: Concepts and Practice (International Thomsons Publishing, London, 1996).
6. D. C. Littman, J. Pinto, S. Letovsky and E. Soloway. Empirical Studies of Programmers, Chapter 6, pp. 80-90 (Ablex Publishing Corporation, Norwood, NJ. 1986).
7. M. H. Halstead. Advances in Computers, Vol. 18, pp. 119-172 (Academic Press, New York, 1979).
8. S. Dekleva. Delphi study of software maintenance problems. In Proceedings, Conference on Software Maintenance, pp. 10-17, Orlando, Florida, November 1992 (IEEE, IEEE Computer Society Press).
9. R. Brooks. Towards a theory of the comprehension of computer programs. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 18 (1983) 543-554.
10. D. Budgen. Software Development with Modula-2 (Addison-Wesley, Wokingham, 1989).
11. J. E. Cooling. Modula-2 for Microcomputer Systems. (Van Nostrand Reinhold International, London, 1988).
12. W. J. Jones (Jr.). Data Structures Using Modula-2 (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1988).
13. R. K. Smith. Why good people write bad code. In Annual Quality Congress Transactions, pp. 720-725, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 1991 (ASQC).
14. B. A. Sheil. The psychological study of programming. In (R. M. Baecker and W. A. S. Buxton, eds). Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: A multidisciplinary Approach, pp. 165-174 (Morgan Kaufman, Los Altos, CA, 1987).
15. F. Detienne. Psychology of Programming, Chapter 3.1, pp. 205-222 (Academic Press, London, 1990).
16. B. Shneiderman. Measuring computer program quality and comprehension. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 9 (1977) 465-478.
17. B. Shneiderman and R. Mayer. Syntactic semantic interactions in programming behaviour: a model. International Journal of Computer and Information Science, 8 (1979) 219-238.
18. R. Rist. Empirical Studies of Programmers: First Workshop (Ablex, Norwood, NJ, 1986).
19. E. Soloway and K. Ehrlich. Empirical studies of programming knowledge. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 10 (1984) 595-609.
20. S. Wiendenbeck. Beacons in computer program comprehension. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 25 (1986) 697-709.
21. S. N. Woodfield, H. E. Dunsmore and V. Y. Shen. Effect of modularization and comments on program comprehension. In Proceedings, 5th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 215-223, Los Alamitos, CA, March 1981 (IEEE Computer Society Press).
22. A. F. Norcio. Human memory processes for comprehending computer programs. In Proceedings International Conference Cybernatics Society, Cambridge, Massachussets, Oct. 8-10 1980, pp. 974-977, Piscataway, NJ, 1980 (IEEE).
23. R. A. Guillemette. Cloze procedure: an assessment of the understandability of data processing texts. Information and Management, 17 (1989) 143-155.
24. W. E. Hall and S. H. Zweben. The cloze procedure and software comprehensibility measurement. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, SE-12 (1986) 608-623.
25. S. B. Sheppard, B. Curtis, P. Milliman and T. Love. Modern coding practices and programmer performance. Computer, 12(12) (1979) 41-49.
26. L. Cohen and M. Holiday. Statistics for Social Scientists: An Introductory Text with Computer Programmes in Basic (Harper and Row, London, 1982).
27. S. Leestma and L. Nyhoff. Programming and Problem Solving in Modula-2 (Macmillan, New York, 1989).
28. R. J. Miara, J. A. Musselman, J. A. Navarro and B. Shneiderman. Program indentation and comprehensibility. Communications of the ACM, 26 (1983) 861-867.
29. J. Foster. An industry view on program comprehension. In Proceedings, 2nd Workshop on Program Comprehension, p. 107, Los Alamitos, 1993 (IEEE Computer Society).
30. L. Cohen and L. Manion. Research Methods in Education, 2nd edn (Croom Helm, Kent, 1985).