Code comprehension as a distributed construction of meanings

• Autorzy: Cofta Piotr

Identyfikatory

DOI

10.5604/01.3001.0013.3001

Warianty tytułu

PL

Podejście do zrozumienia kodu jako do konstrukcji sensu

• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

Code comprehension, a sub-domain of reverse engineering and software maintenance, does not provide useful explanation of common situations where developers, distributed and isolated from each other in time and space, come to a similar understanding of a code. This limits our ability to develop tools to support this popular aspect of code comprehension. This paper investigates this phenomenon from the perspective of sociology, intentionally distancing itself from the dominating psychological approach. The analysis, conducted mostly from the standpoint of social systems theory, highlights that as the construction of meanings is subjective, in the absence of any significant interactions, the dominant influence on the construction of meanings comes from current states of various social systems to which the developer belongs to. Thus, the similarity of meanings (hence a better comprehension of the code) can be achieved by understanding systems to which the developer belongs to and by coordinating their states.

PL

Rozumienie kodu, istotna część inżynierii oprogramowania, jest obecnie badane głównie z pozycji psychologii, a w znacznie mniejszym stopniu z pozycji socjologii. Przypuszczalnie spowodowane jest to odczuciem, że dostępne teorie socjologiczne nie odnoszą się do problemów związanych z rozumieniem kodu. Ten artykuł argumentuje, że socjologiczna teoria systemów społecznych może znaleźć zastosowanie w badaniach nad rozumieniem kodu. Proponuje on skoncentrowanie się na formach systemów społecznych, które pozwalają na spójną rekonstrukcję znaczenia kodu. Artykuł ilustruje rozważania serią przypadków użycia, demonstrując, że rozumienie kodu jest i powinno być traktowane jako działanie społeczne, opisywalne odpowiednimi teoriami. Następnie skoncentrowano się na proponowanym wykorzystaniu teorii systemów społecznych, aby zakończyć omówieniem potencjalnych implikacji nowego podejścia na różne obszary badań.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

computer science; code comprehension; social systems theory; reverse engineering; software maintenance

PL

informatyka; rozumienie kodu; teoria systemów społecznych; inżynieria odwrotna; utrzymanie oprogramowania

• Wydawca: Wojskowa Akademia Techniczna im. Jarosława Dąbrowskiego
• Czasopismo: Biuletyn Wojskowej Akademii Technicznej
• Rocznik: 2019
• Tom: Vol. 68, nr 2
• Strony: 23--41
• Opis fizyczny: Bibliogr. 36 poz., rys.

Twórcy

autor

Cofta Piotr

• UTP University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Telecommunications, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, 7 S. Kaliskiego Str., 85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland

Bibliografia

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Uwagi

1. Opracowanie rekordu w ramach umowy 509/P-DUN/2018 ze środków MNiSW przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (2019).

2. The work has been funded as a part of the statutory research of the UTP University of Science and Technology, Bydgoszcz.

3. The article was prepared on the basis of a paper presented at the International Conference of Software Engineering KKIO’18. Pułtusk, September 27-28, 2018.