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Descriptive compound identifier names improve source code comprehension

Authors:

Andrea Schankin,

Daniel V. Holt,

Johannes C. Hofmeister,

Michael BeiglAuthors Info & Claims

ICPC '18: Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Program Comprehension

Pages 31 - 40

https://doi.org/10.1145/3196321.3196332

Published: 28 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Reading and understanding source code is a major task in software development. Code comprehension depends on the quality of code, which is impacted by code structure and identifier naming. In this paper we empirically investigated whether longer but more descriptive identifier names improve code comprehension compared to short names, as they represent useful information in more detail. In a web-based study 88 Java developers were asked to locate a semantic defect in source code snippets. With descriptive identifier names, developers spent more time in the lines of code before the actual defect occurred and changed their reading direction less often, finding the semantic defect about 14% faster than with shorter but less descriptive identifier names. These effects disappeared when developers searched for a syntax error, i.e., when no in-depth understanding of the code was required. Interestingly, the style of identifier names had a clear impact on program comprehension for more experienced developers but not for less experienced developers.

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Cited By

Schantong BSiegmund NSiegmund J(2025)Toward a theory on programmer’s block inspired by writer’s blockEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10542-930:1Online publication date: 1-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-024-10542-9
Aman HAmasaki SYokogawa TKawahara M(2024)A Quantitative Investigation of Trends in Confusing Variable Pairs Through Commits: Do Confusing Variable Pairs Survive?Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/3661167.3661228(90-99)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3661167.3661228
van der Werf VHermans FSpecht MAivaloglou EDorodchi MZhange MCooper S(2024)Promoting Deliberate Naming Practices in Programming Education: A Set of Interactive Educational ActivitiesProceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 110.1145/3649165.3690115(235-241)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649165.3690115
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Index Terms

Descriptive compound identifier names improve source code comprehension
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development techniques
      1. Error handling and recovery
    2. Software post-development issues
      1. Maintaining software
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Extra-functional properties
      1. Software usability

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Program comprehension is a crucial activity, preliminary to any software maintenance task. Such an activity can be difficult when the source code is not adequately documented, or the documentation is outdated. Differently from the many existing ...

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICPC '18: Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Program Comprehension

May 2018

423 pages

ISBN:9781450357142

DOI:10.1145/3196321

General Chair:
Foutse Khomh
École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Chanchal K. Roy
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
,
Janet Siegmund
University of Passau, Germany

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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IEEE-CS: Computer Society

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 May 2018

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ICSE '18

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SIGSOFT
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ICSE '18: 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 28 - 29, 2018

Gothenburg, Sweden

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ICSE 2025

2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

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Cited By

Schantong BSiegmund NSiegmund J(2025)Toward a theory on programmer’s block inspired by writer’s blockEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10542-930:1Online publication date: 1-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-024-10542-9
Aman HAmasaki SYokogawa TKawahara M(2024)A Quantitative Investigation of Trends in Confusing Variable Pairs Through Commits: Do Confusing Variable Pairs Survive?Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/3661167.3661228(90-99)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3661167.3661228
van der Werf VHermans FSpecht MAivaloglou EDorodchi MZhange MCooper S(2024)Promoting Deliberate Naming Practices in Programming Education: A Set of Interactive Educational ActivitiesProceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 110.1145/3649165.3690115(235-241)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649165.3690115
van der Werf VHermans FSpecht MAivaloglou EDorodchi MZhange MCooper S(2024)Variables and Variable Naming in Popular Programming Textbooks for Children and NovicesProceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 110.1145/3649165.3690112(242-248)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649165.3690112
van der Werf VSwidan AHermans FSpecht MAivaloglou ERoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MGama KSiegmund J(2024)Teachers' Beliefs and Practices on the Naming of Variables in Introductory Python Programming CoursesProceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3639474.3640069(368-379)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639474.3640069
Tempero ETu Y(2024)Using Program Comprehension Models to Teach ComprehensibilityProceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3636243.3636244(1-10)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3636243.3636244
Nazari ASwayamdipta SChattopadhyay SRaghothaman M(2024)Generating Function Names to Improve Comprehension of Synthesized Programs2024 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL/HCC60511.2024.00035(248-259)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/VL/HCC60511.2024.00035
Wang TZhang YJiang LTang YLi GLiu H(2024)Deep learning based identification of inconsistent method names: How far are we?Empirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10592-z30:1Online publication date: 25-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-024-10592-z
Wang WLi DKang YZhao Y(2024)An intelligent java method name recommendation framework via two-phase neural networksEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10574-130:1Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-024-10574-1
Park KJohnson JPeterson CYedla NBaysinger IAponte JSharif B(2024)An eye tracking study assessing source code readability rules for program comprehensionEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-024-10532-x29:6Online publication date: 5-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-024-10532-x
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