An empirical evaluation of models of programmer navigation
Abstract
In this paper, we report an evaluation study of predictive models of programmer navigation. In particular, we compared two operationalizations of navigation from the literature (click-based versus view-based) to see which more accurately records a developer's navigation behaviors. Moreover, we also compared the predictive accuracy of seven models of programmer navigation from the literature, including ones based on navigation history and code-structural relationships. To address our research goals, we performed a controlled laboratory study of the navigation behavior of 10 participants engaged in software evolution tasks. The study was a partial replication of a previous comprehensive evaluation of predictive models by Piorkowski et al., and also served to test the generalizability of their results. Key findings of the study included that the click-based navigations agreed closely with those reported by human observers, whereas view-based navigations diverged significantly. Furthermore, our data showed that the predictive model based on recency was significantly more accurate than the other models, suggesting the strong potential for tools that leverage recency-type models. Finally, our model-accuracy results had a strong correlation with the Piorkowski results; however, our results differed in several noteworthy ways, potentially caused by differences in task type and code familiarity.
Publication Title
Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2016
Recommended Citation
Singh, A., Henley, A., Fleming, S., & Luong, M. (2017). An empirical evaluation of models of programmer navigation. Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2016, 9-19. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSME.2016.84
