Towards a theory of the comprehension of computer programs
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Developers seek information to answer specific questions, test mental hypotheses, develop context, or follow leads.
“These studies have also revealed that developers seek this information to answer specific questions that they have [23,42], to test mental hypotheses about how an existing program works [4], to develop an overall sense of context [13], or to follow leads that simply look relevant to their current task [26].”
From Foraging and navigations, fundamentally: developers' predictions of value and cost (2016) · cites this paper as [4]
Cites
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Towards a theory of the cognitive processes in computer programming
Brooks, R. (1977) · International Journal of Man-Machine Studies · doi:10.1016/s0020-7373(77)80039-4 · Cited by 222 · see citing works
Self-citationTowards a theory of the cognitive processes in computer programming
Brooks, R. (1999) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1006/ijhc.1977.0306 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Self-citationProblem Solving in Semantically Rich Domains: An Example from Engineering Thermodynamics*
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Understanding and Documenting Programs
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Atwood, M. E., Turner, A. A., Ramsey, H. R., et al. (1978) · doi:10.21236/ada073727 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
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Stimulus structures and mental representations in expert comprehension of computer programs
Pennington, N. (1987) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(87)90007-7 · Cited by 526 · see citing works
On the Comprehension of Program Comprehension
Maalej, W., Tiarks, R., Roehm, T., & Koschke, R. (2014) · ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · doi:10.1145/2622669 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Towards understanding programs through wear-based filtering
DeLine, R., Khella, A., Czerwinski, M., & Robertson, G. (2005) · Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Software visualization · doi:10.1145/1056018.1056044 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
An Information Foraging Theory Perspective on Tools for Debugging, Refactoring, and Reuse Tasks
Fleming, S. D., Scaffidi, C., Piorkowski, D., Burnett, M., Bellamy, R., Lawrance, J., & Kwan, I. (2013) · ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · doi:10.1145/2430545.2430551 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Descriptive Compound Identifier Names Improve Source Code Comprehension
Schankin, A., Berger, A., Holt, D. V., Hofmeister, J. C., Riedel, T., & Beigl, M. (2018) · Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Program Comprehension · doi:10.1145/3196321.3196332 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Reactive information foraging for evolving goals
Lawrance, J., Burnett, M., Bellamy, R., Bogart, C., & Swart, C. (2010) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1753326.1753332 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Developers' code context models for change tasks
Fritz, T., Shepherd, D. C., Kevic, K., Snipes, W., & Bräunlich, C. (2014) · Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering · doi:10.1145/2635868.2635905 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Foraging and navigations, fundamentally: developers' predictions of value and cost
Piorkowski, D., Henley, A. Z., Nabi, T., Fleming, S. D., Scaffidi, C., & Burnett, M. (2016) · Proceedings of the 2016 24th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering · doi:10.1145/2950290.2950302 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Computing Education Research Today
Fincher, S. A., Tenenberg, J., Dorn, B., Hundhausen, C., McCartney, R., & Murphy, L. (2019) · The Cambridge Handbook of Computing Education Research · doi:10.1017/9781108654555.003 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- Brooks, R.
- Affiliations
- ITT (United States) (US)
- Corresponding author
- Brooks, Ruven
- Venue
- International Journal of Man-Machine Studies
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1983-06
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 543-554
- ISSN
- 0020-7373 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2120704737
- Cited by
- 756
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 14.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Journal of Man-Machine Studies (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Keywords
- program comprehension, programmer behavior, knowledge reconstruction, software documentation, domain knowledge
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