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A Study on Guiding Programmers’ Code Navigation with a Graphical Code Recommender Seonah Lee and Sungwon Kang August 10, 2011

Outline 1. Motivation

2. Previous Studies / Approaches 3. Our Study

4. Study Results 5. Summary

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1. Motivation  To facilitate programmers’ comprehension of

code, software visualization tools have developed as comprehension aids.

Program comprehension is an activity of seeking information

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software visualization tools do not responsively provide the relevant information that programmers seek

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2. Previous Studies / Approaches  Previous Studies  Previous Approaches  Diagrammatic Support : CodeCanvas,

CodeBubble  Historical-based Code Recommenders : TeamTracks, Mylyn

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Previous Studies  Software visualization tools have generally failed

to impact on programmers’ code comprehension [Reiss, 2005]  Programmers frequently use diagrams, they

rarely use diagramming tools [Cherubini, 2007]  Programmers still expect to use software

visualization tools for their code comprehension [Lee, 2008] SERA 2011

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Previous Approaches (1/2)  Diagrammatic Support for Program Comprehension  Provide a full overview of a software system  ex. Code Canvas [DeLine, 2010]  Incrementally visualize the parts of code base that a

programmer navigates  ex. Code Bubble [Bragdon, 2010]

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Previous Approaches (2/2)  History-based Code Recommenders  Recommend those code elements historically

associated with the method that a programmer selects ex.  ex. TeamTracks [DeLine, 2005], ROSE [Zimmermann, 2004]

 Display a collection of code when a programmer

selects a task ID.  ex. Mylyn [Kersten, 2006]

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3. Our Study

 Research Question  Research Approach  Our Prototype  Study Format  Interview Questions

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Research Question Problem

The shortcoming of software visualization tools is not to provide the relevant information that programmers seek

Goal

To make a software visualization tool provide informative diagrams

Question

What diagrammatic content programmers want to see and when they want to see it?

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Research Approach  Wizard of Oz study  A research method where participants interact with an

intelligent system, actually operated by an unseen human being—a wizard operator

Use a prototype tool

Interview

Revising the prototype SERA 2011

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Our Prototype  A Graphical Code Recommender (GCR)  According to a programmer’s interactions with IDE, it recommends a

diagram in a graphical view

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Study Format  Participants: 11 professional programmers  5 years of industrial experience  4 years of experience with Java  2.6 years of experience with Eclipse

 1~4 programming tasks on the JHotDraw 6.01b  10 minute preparation  1 hour task session  30 minute interview Task 1-Node 2-Arrow 3-Duplicate 4-Size SERA 2011

Description Make a connection from and to the corners of a node Change an arrow tip according to the menu Make a short-cut key for the duplicate command Inform the size of an activity pane in the status bar 12

Study Format  Data Collection  Taking pictures of the displayed diagram  Recording participants’ voice  Noting the participants’ comments

 Initial Paper Prototype

Structural Information (SI) SERA 2011

Navigational Information (NI) 13

Study Format Iteration

1st iteration

2nd iteration

3rd iteration

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Prototype

Study format

A paper prototype of two types: Controlled by a wizard operator - Structural Information (SI) - Participants: 1a & 1b - Navigational Information (NI) - Tasks: Task 2

An initially computerized prototype

A revised computerized prototype

Partly controlled by a wizard operator - Participants: 2c, 2d & 2e - Tasks: Task 2 & 3

Not controlled by a wizard operator - Participants: 3f, 3g, 3h, 3i, 3j & 3k - Tasks: Task 1, 2, & 3 14

Interview Questions  Q1: do programmers find a recommended

view useful when navigating the code?  Q2: what diagrammatic contents do

programmers expect to see in the view?  Q3: when do programmers expect to see the

diagrammatic contents?

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4. Study Results

 Revisions through Iterations  Q1: do programmers find a recommended

view useful when navigating the code?  Q2: what diagrammatic contents do

programmers expect to see in the view?  Q3: when do programmers expect to see the

diagrammatic contents?

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Revisions through Iterations  1st Iteration: What diagrammatic contents do programmers expect ?  Feedback: NI-typed diagrams > SI-typed diagrams

 Revision: To show Navigational Information (NI)

 2nd Iteration: When do programmers expect to see the diagrammatic contents?  Feedback: A participant was given a diagram by a wizard operator after 10 minutes.  Revision: To shorten the time intervals from 5~10 to 3~5 minutes

 3rd Iteration: do programmers find a recommended view useful when navigating the code base?  Feedback: “very good”(3/6), “Good” (2/6), “Fair” (1/6)  No Revision, used a questionnaire to rate participants’ preferences SERA 2011

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Result: Do programmers find a graphical view useful?  Many participants (9 of 11: 1a, 1b, 2c, 2e, 3g, 3h, 3i,

3j, 3k) positively evaluated the given graphical view, while a few participants (2 of 11: 2d, 3f) negatively evaluated.  The six participants’ rate in the last iteration

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Result: Do programmers find a graphical view useful?

2e

3k

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“It helped me find entry points […] I was able to select a method to examine from here.”

“Uh, here are all answers”

3h

“It provides a crucial hint”

“I did not understand how this class view showed up […]”

2d

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Result: What diagrammatic contents do programmers find useful? Diagrammatic Contents

Participant ID

Task relevant methods

2c, 2e, 3g, 3h, 3k

Relationships among classes

1a, 1b, 2c

A class hierarchy

2d, 3f, 3j

An overview

2c, 2d, 3k

Description of methods

2e, 3i

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Result: When do programmers find a graphical view useful?  It was difficult to determine an optimal time

interval of view change as it heavily relies on the given programmer’s needs.  Though, we found that a graphical view changing in 1~3 minutes on side monitor did not disturb the programmers’ work. Time Interval

Participant ID

5~10 minutes

1b, 2e

3~5 minutes

1a, 2c, 2d

1~3 minutes

3f, 3g, 3h, 3i, 3j, 3k

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5. Summary  We suggest a graphical code recommender that

instantly recommends new parts of a code base that are pertinent to a programmer’s task as a programmer navigates the code base  The participants stated that the graphical view was very helpful, in particular when they were uncertain about where to look while exploring

the code base.

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Question?

Seonah Lee [email protected]

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