Theories, methods and tools in program comprehension: past, present and future

Program comprehension research can be characterized by both the theories that provide rich explanations about how programmers comprehend software, as well as the tools that are used to assist in comprehension tasks. During this talk the author review some of the key cognitive theories of program comprehension that have emerged. Using these theories as a canvas, the author then explores how tools that are popular today have evolved to support program comprehension. Specifically, the author discusses how the theories and tools are related and reflect on the research methods that were used to construct the theories and evaluate the tools. The reviewed theories and tools will be further differentiated according to human characteristics, program characteristics, and the context for the various comprehension tasks. Finally, the author predicts how these characteristics will change in the future and speculate on how a number of important research directions could lead to improvements in program comprehension tools and methods.