Does a programmer’s activity indicate knowledge of code?

Authors: Thomas Fritz, Gail C. Murphy, Emily Hill

The practice of software development can likely be improved if an externalized model of each programmer’s knowledge of a particular code base is available. Some tools already assume a useful form of such a model can be created from data collected during development, such as expertise recommenders that use information about who has changed each file to suggest who might answer questions about particular parts of a system. In this paper, we report on an empirical study that investigates whether a programmer’s activity can be used to build a model of what a programmer knows about a code base. In this study, nineteen professional Java programmers completed a series of questionnaires about the code on which they were working. These questionnaires were generated automatically and asked about program elements a programmer had worked with frequently and recently and ones that he had not. We found that a degree of interest model based on this frequency and recency of interaction can often indicate the parts of the code base for which the programmer has knowledge. We also determined a number of factors that may be used to improve the model, such as authorship of program elements, the role of elements, and the task being performed.

Full Paper