Article

A diagnosis-based approach to software comprehension

Authors:

Alexandre Perez,

Rui AbreuAuthors Info & Claims

ICPC 2014: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Program Comprehension

Pages 37 - 47

https://doi.org/10.1145/2597008.2597151

Published: 02 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Program comprehension is a time-consuming task performed during the process of reusing, reengineering, and enhancing existing systems. Currently, there are tools to assist in program comprehension by means of dynamic analysis, but, e.g., most cannot identify the topology and the interactions of a certain functionality in need of change, especially when used in large, real-world software applications. We propose an approach, coined Spectrum-based Feature Comprehension (SFC), that borrows techniques used for automatic software-fault-localization, which were proven to be effective even when debugging large applications in resource-constrained environments. SFC analyses the program by exploiting run-time information from test case executions to compute the components that are important for a given feature (and whether a component is used to implement just one feature or more), helping software engineers to understand how a program is structured and what the functionality's dependencies are. We present a toolset, coined Pangolin, that implements SFC and displays its report to the user using an intuitive visualization. A user study with the open-source application Rhino is presented, demonstrating the efficiency of Pangolin in locating the components that should be inspected when changing a certain functionality.

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Cited By

Yen RSultanum NZhao J(2024)To Search or To Gen? Exploring the Synergy between Generative AI and Web Search in ProgrammingExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650867(1-8)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650867
Mühlbauer SSattler FKaltenecker CDorn JApel SSiegmund N(2023)Analysing the Impact of Workloads on Modeling the Performance of Configurable Software Systems2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00176(2085-2097)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00176
Michelon GMartinez JSotto-Mayor BArrieta AAssunção WAbreu REgyed A(2023)Spectrum-based feature localization for families of systemsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2022.111532195:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111532
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Index Terms

A diagnosis-based approach to software comprehension
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Software management
        Software maintenance
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software post-development issues

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICPC 2014: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Program Comprehension

June 2014

325 pages

ISBN:9781450328791

DOI:10.1145/2597008

General Chair:
Chanchal K. Roy
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Andrew Begel
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Leon Moonen
Simula Research Laboratory, Norway

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 02 June 2014

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Cited By

Yen RSultanum NZhao J(2024)To Search or To Gen? Exploring the Synergy between Generative AI and Web Search in ProgrammingExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650867(1-8)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650867
Mühlbauer SSattler FKaltenecker CDorn JApel SSiegmund N(2023)Analysing the Impact of Workloads on Modeling the Performance of Configurable Software Systems2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00176(2085-2097)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00176
Michelon GMartinez JSotto-Mayor BArrieta AAssunção WAbreu REgyed A(2023)Spectrum-based feature localization for families of systemsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2022.111532195:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111532
Michelon GSotto-Mayor BMartinez JArrieta AAbreu RAssunção WMousavi MSchobbens P(2021)Spectrum-based feature localizationProceedings of the 25th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume A10.1145/3461001.3473065(126-130)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2021
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Ragavan SCodoban MPiorkowski DDig DBurnett M(2021)Version Control Systems: An Information Foraging PerspectiveIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2019.293129647:8(1644-1655)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2021
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Kery MJohn BO'Flaherty PHorvath AMyers BBrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)Towards Effective Foraging by Data Scientists to Find Past Analysis ChoicesProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300322(1-13)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
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Castro BPerez AAbreu RZimmermann TLawall JMarinov D(2019)PangolinProceedings of the 34th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1109/ASE.2019.00119(1130-1133)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2019
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Horváth FGergely TBeszédes ÁTengeri DBalogh GGyimóthy T(2019)Code coverage differences of Java bytecode and source code instrumentation toolsSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-017-9389-z27:1(79-123)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2019
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Dodge JPenney SHilderbrand CAnderson ABurnett MMandryk RHancock MPerry MCox A(2018)How the Experts Do ItProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3174136(1-12)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
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