a research program

Most process research relies heavily on the use of terms and concepts whose validity depends on a variety of assumptions to be met. As it is difficult to guarantee that they are met, such work continually runs the risk of being invalid. We propose a different and complementary approach to understanding process: Perform all description bottom-up and based on hard data alone. We call the approach actual process and the data actual events. Actual events can be measured automatically. This paper describes what has been done in this area already and what are the core problems to be solved in the future

Bilişim Teknolojileri Öğretmeni Adaylarının Programlama Sürecini Etkileyen Faktörler

The aim of this study is to determine the problems effecting programming process of preservice information technology teachers and the reasons of these problems by monitoring programming process. In this study, programming processes of pre-service teachers were investigated with cognitive task analysis. Six Information Technologies teacher candidates, taking Internet Based Programming course in Fall Semester of 2011-2012 academic year at the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) at Hacettepe University, participated in the study. Participants were divided to three groups, namely advanced, intermediate and beginner according to their prior programming knowledge and experiences, Tasks of writing program and reading program were assigned to the participants. After the tasks of reading program and thinking and writing program simultaneously, interviews were made with retrospective thinking aloud procedure. The data was analyzed by the NVivo 8 package program. It was found that while participants in advanced level were more successful in the task of writing program, participants in intermediate level were more successful in the task of reading program. The findings indicated that these two processes, writing program and reading program, may require different skills and cognitive processes.Bu çalışmanın amacı, bilişim teknolojileri öğretmen adaylarının programlama sürecini izleyerek, bu süreçteki sorunları ve bu sorunların nedenlerini belirlemektir. Bu çalışmada bilişsel görev analizi ile öğretmen adaylarının programlama süreçleri incelenmiştir. Çalışmaya Hacettepe Üniversitesi Bilgisayar ve Öğretim Teknolojileri Eğitimi (BÖTE) Bölümü’nde 2011-2012 Güz Dönemi’nde İnternet Tabanlı Programlama dersine devam eden 6 bilişim teknolojileri öğretmen adayı katılmıştır. Katılımcılar önceki programlama bilgi ve deneyimlerine göre ileri, orta ve düşük olmak üzere üçe ayrılmıştır. Katılımcılara program yazma ve program okuma görevleri verilmiştir. Program okuma görevi ile eş-zamanlı düşünme ve program yazma görevinden sonra geriye dönük sesli düşünme ile görüşme yapılmıştır. Veriler NVivo 8 programı yardımıyla analiz edilmiştir. Program yazma görevinde ileri düzeydeki katılımcılar daha başarılı olurken, program okuma görevinde orta düzeydeki katılımcıların daha başarılı olduğu görülmektedir. Bu durum, program yazma ve okuma görevlerinin birbirinden farklı beceriler gerektirdiğini ve farklı bilişsel süreçler içerdiğini göstermektedir

The background information on subjects in program comprehension studies

Program comprehension is a very important skill a software engineer need. Many researchers conduct experiments on program comprehension in order to improve tools, documentation, and maintenance guidelines supporting program comprehension. Individual programmers’ productivity might vary significantly even though they have similar background. Thus, the subjects’ background is very important when conducting and analyzing experiments on program comprehension. The survey presented in this short Master thesis identifies subjects background information reported in software experiments on program comprehension. The background information reported in 24 articles was systematically analyzed in order to answer what kind of background information is reported and how the background information was used in the analysis. The articles reports many different background variables, but the overall impression of the background information reported in program comprehension experiments is that it is rather arbitrary and small. The analysis shows that there is a need for standards and guidelines of how to collect and report subjects’ background information. The survey shows also that almost no background information of the subjects is used in the experiments’ analysis. The articles in this survey provide so little information about the subjects’ background that it is difficult to perform replications and meta-analysis. This thesis aims to make researchers more aware of the subjects’ background in their experiments and reports. On the basis of the results of the analysis I have suggested background variables that should be collected in comprehension studies and proposed a background questionnaire. The questionnaire was used in an experiment with 24 subjects from the industry. I report here experiences with the questionnaire

Visualization of the Static aspects of Software: a survey

International audienceSoftware is usually complex and always intangible. In practice, the development and maintenance processes are time-consuming activities mainly because software complexity is difficult to manage. Graphical visualization of software has the potential to result in a better and faster understanding of its design and functionality, saving time and providing valuable information to improve its quality. However, visualizing software is not an easy task because of the huge amount of information comprised in the software. Furthermore, the information content increases significantly once the time dimension to visualize the evolution of the software is taken into account. Human perception of information and cognitive factors must thus be taken into account to improve the understandability of the visualization. In this paper, we survey visualization techniques, both 2D- and 3D-based, representing the static aspects of the software and its evolution. We categorize these techniques according to the issues they focus on, in order to help compare them and identify the most relevant techniques and tools for a given problem

Program Comprehension Through Sonification

Background: Comprehension of computer programs is daunting, thanks in part to clutter in the software developer's visual environment and the need for frequent visual context changes. Non-speech sound has been shown to be useful in understanding the behavior of a program as it is running. Aims: This thesis explores whether using sound to help understand the static structure of programs is viable and advantageous. Method: A novel concept for program sonification is introduced. Non-speech sounds indicate characteristics of and relationships among a Java program's classes, interfaces, and methods. A sound mapping is incorporated into a prototype tool consisting of an extension to the Eclipse integrated development environment communicating with the sound engine Csound. Developers examining source code can aurally explore entities outside of the visual context. A rich body of sound techniques provides expanded representational possibilities. Two studies were conducted. In the first, software professionals participated in exploratory sessions to informally validate the sound mapping concept. The second study was a human-subjects experiment to discover whether using the tool and sound mapping improve performance of software comprehension tasks. Twenty-four software professionals and students performed maintenance-oriented tasks on two Java programs with and without sound. Results: Viability is strong for differentiation and characterization of software entities, less so for identification. The results show no overall advantage of using sound in terms of task duration at a 5% level of significance. The results do, however, suggest that sonification can be advantageous under certain conditions. Conclusions: The use of sound in program comprehension shows sufficient promise for continued research. Limitations of the present research include restriction to particular types of comprehension tasks, a single sound mapping, a single programming language, and limited training time. Future work includes experiments and case studies employing a wider set of comprehension tasks, sound mappings in domains other than software, and adding navigational capability for use by the visually impaired

Inverse software configuration management

Software systems are playing an increasingly important role in almost every aspect of today’s society such that they impact on our businesses, industry, leisure, health and safety. Many of these systems are extremely large and complex and depend upon the correct interaction of many hundreds or even thousands of heterogeneous components. Commensurate with this increased reliance on software is the need for high quality products that meet customer expectations, perform reliably and which can be cost-effectively and safely maintained. Techniques such as software configuration management have proved to be invaluable during the development process to ensure that this is the case. However, there are a very large number of legacy systems which were not developed under controlled conditions, but which still, need to be maintained due to the heavy investment incorporated within them. Such systems are characterised by extremely high program comprehension overheads and the probability that new errors will be introduced during the maintenance process often with serious consequences. To address the issues concerning maintenance of legacy systems this thesis has defined and developed a new process and associated maintenance model, Inverse Software Configuration Management (ISCM). This model centres on a layered approach to the program comprehension process through the definition of a number of software configuration abstractions. This information together with the set of rules for reclaiming the information is stored within an Extensible System Information Base (ESIB) via, die definition of a Programming-in-the- Environment (PITE) language, the Inverse Configuration Description Language (ICDL). In order to assist the application of the ISCM process across a wide range of software applications and system architectures, die PISCES (Proforma Identification Scheme for Configurations of Existing Systems) method has been developed as a series of defined procedures and guidelines. To underpin the method and to offer a user-friendly interface to the process a series of templates, the Proforma Increasing Complexity Series (PICS) has been developed. To enable the useful employment of these techniques on large-scale systems, the subject of automation has been addressed through the development of a flexible meta-CASE environment, the PISCES M4 (MultiMedia Maintenance Manager) system. Of particular interest within this environment is the provision of a multimedia user interface (MUI) to die maintenance process. As a means of evaluating the PISCES method and to provide feedback into die ISCM process a number of practical applications have been modelled. In summary, this research has considered a number of concepts some of which are innovative in themselves, others of which are used in an innovative manner. In combination these concepts may be considered to considerably advance the knowledge and understanding of die comprehension process during the maintenance of legacy software systems. A number of publications have already resulted from the research and several more are in preparation. Additionally a number of areas for further study have been identified some of which are already underway as funded research and development projects