NDLI: Structural Knowledge and Language Notational Properties in Program Comprehension

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Romero, P. du Boulay, B.
Copyright Year	2004
Description	Author affiliation: Human Centred Technol. Group, Sussex Univ., Falmer (Romero, P.; du Boulay, B.)
Abstract	Several accounts of program comprehension have taken the theory of text comprehension by Kinstch as a starting point to model the mental representations built when programmers understand a computer program. A crucial point that these accounts try to explain is how these mental representations are organised. According to Kintsch's theory, the mental representations built as a product of the text comprehension process are interrelated propositional networks whose organisation is determined by the main idea of the text. In program comprehension, this main idea has been understood in terms of functionality. This paper contends this notion, proposing that in program understanding programmer's mental representations are multifaceted and organised through several criteria. Which of these is the most important one depends on the programming language employed among other factors. The fact that functional information appeared as crucial might have been because most of the empirical research that has been undertaken has employed procedural languages. This claim is tested empirically by analysing the mental representations of programmers in Prolog, a declarative programming language. The results support our claim by showing that in this case data structure information is more important than function
Sponsorship	IEEE Comput. Soc. US Nat. Sci. Found. Univ. of Rome Univ. of Salerno AICA Comune di Roma Provinica di Roma
Starting Page	223
Ending Page	225
File Size	93192
Page Count	3
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780386965
DOI	10.1109/VLHCC.2004.50
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2004-09-26
Publisher Place	Italy
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Programming profession Computer languages Humans Data structures Testing Knowledge representation Debugging program comprehension knowledge representation program debugging
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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