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Program comprehension, i.e. to understand from its source code what a computer programdoes, is crucial for change and maintenance in software development. In this thesis, it is lookedfor innovative documentation techniques and tools that support program comprehension, butthat are also conform to agile values and principles – commonly, documentation is consideredcritical due to the agile value “working software over comprehensive documentation.”1 First,a research framework is developed that embodies detailed requisites for such techniques andtools. Apart from its internal use for examining techniques and tools subsequently obtainedfrom a literature search, this framework is intended to be likewise employed by software practitioners.Eventually, the findings of a series of survey studies conducted in an industrial softwareorganization for the primary purpose of evaluating the obtained techniques and tools are analyzed.Three innovative techniques that meet all requisites are revealed. These are regarded bypractitioners independently from the support of program comprehension as helpful for a changeimpact analysis conducted by non-developers. Therefore, a requisite deduced from the highestpriority in agile software development – customer satisfaction – is met. It says that a techniqueor tool has to directly induce a benefit for non-developer stakeholders besides the benefits forthem which are indirectly induced by the support of program comprehension, e.g. a potentiallyimproved source code quality. Further, the technique most beneficial for developers as well asfor non-developers among the three techniques is identified, which bases on design rationales– textual information related to the source code that states the reasons why a part of the programhas been implemented in a certain way. Secondarily, the studies revealed that the researchframework is difficult to understand for practitioners due to its unstructured form. / Program: Magisterutbildning i informatik

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2008. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Computer Science and Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Since humans first put pen to paper, people have critically assessed written work; thus, the assessment of documents per se is not new. Only recently, however, has the issue of formalized document quality assessment become feasible. Enabled by the rapid progress in computing technology, the prospect of an automated, formalized system of quality assessment, based on the presence of certain attributes deemed essential to the quality of a document, is feasible. The existing Objectives/Principles/Attributes Framework, previously applied to code assessment, is modified to allow application to documentation quality assessment. An automated procedure for the assessment of software documentation quality assessment and the development of a prototype documentation analyzer are described. A major shortcoming of the many quality metrics that are proposed in computer science is their lack of empirical validation. In pursuit of such necessary validation for the measures proposed within this thesis, a study is performed to determine the agreement of the measures rendered by Docalyze with those of human evaluators. This thesis demonstrates the applicability of a quality assessment framework to the documentation component of a software product. Further, the validity of a subset of the proposed metrics is demonstrated. / Master of Science

This thesis explores the integration of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) into software documentation processes, assessing their impact on developer productivity. The research focuses on the development of a documentation system powered by an LLM, which automates the creation and retrieval of software documentation. The study employs a controlled experiment followed by a survey involving software developers to quantify changes in productivity through various metrics such as effectiveness, velocity, and quality of documentation generated by the system. Background: The increasing complexity of software development necessitates efficient documentation systems. Traditional methods, often manual and time-consuming, struggle to keep pace with the dynamics of software development, potentially leading to outdated and inadequate documentation. Objectives: To investigate whether a documentation system powered by an LLM can enhance developers’ productivity in software documentation tasks by assisting developers with the creation of development documentation and facilitating the retrieval of relevant information. Method: A controlled experiment followed by a survey were conducted, wherein participants were tasked with generating and using documentation through both manual and LLM-assisted methods. The effectiveness, velocity, and quality of the documentation were measured and compared. Results: The findings indicate that the LLM-powered documentation system significantly enhances developer productivity. Developers using the system were able to produce and comprehend documentation more quickly and accurately than those using the manual method. Furthermore, the quality of the documentation, assessed in terms of comprehensibility, completeness, and readability, was consistently higher when generated by the LLM system. Conclusions: The integration of LLMs into software documentation processes can significantly enhance developer productivity by automating routine tasks and improving the quality of documentation. This supports software developers in maintaining current projects and also assists in the onboarding process of new team members by providing easier access to necessary documentation. / Denna avhandling utforskar integrationen av generativ AI och stora språkmodeller (LLM) i processer för mjukvarudokumentation, och bedömer deras inverkan på utvecklares produktivitet. Forskningen fokuserar på utvecklingen av ett dokumentationssystem drivet av en LLM, som automatiserar skapandet och hämtningen av mjukvarudokumentation. Studien använder ett kontrollerat experiment följt av en enkät som involverar professionella mjukvaruutvecklare för att kvantifiera förändringar i produktivitet genom olika mått som effektivitet, hastighet och kvalitet på dokumentation genererad av systemet. Bakgrund: Den ökande komplexiteten i mjukvaruutveckling kräver effektiva dokumentationssystem. Traditionella metoder, ofta manuella och tidskrävande, har svårt att hålla jämna steg med dynamiken i mjukvaruutveckling, vilket potentiellt kan leda till föråldrad och otillräcklig dokumentation. Syfte: Att undersöka om ett dokumentationssystem drivet av en LLM kan förbättra utvecklares produktivitet i uppgifter relaterade till mjukvarudokumentation genom att assistera utvecklare med att skapa utvecklingsdokumentation och underlätta hämtningen av relevant information. Metod: Ett kontrollerat experiment följt av en enkät genomfördes, där deltagarna hade i uppgift att generera och använda dokumentation genom både manuella och LLM-assisterade metoder. Effektiviteten, hastigheten och kvaliteten på dokumentationen mättes och jämfördes. Resultat: Resultaten visar att dokumentationssystemet drivet av LLM väsentligen förbättrar utvecklarnas produktivitet. Utvecklare som använde systemet kunde producera och förstå dokumentation snabbare och mer exakt än de som använde den manuella metoden. Vidare var kvaliteten på dokumentationen, bedömd i termer av begriplighet, fullständighet och läsbarhet, konsekvent högre när den genererades av LLM-systemet. Slutsatser: Integrationen av LLM i mjukvarudokumentationsprocesser kan väsentligen förbättra utvecklarnas produktivitet genom att automatisera rutinuppgifter och förbättra kvaliteten på dokumentation. Detta stöder inte bara mjukvaruutvecklare i att underhålla pågående projekt utan hjälper också till med introduktionen av nya teammedlemmar genom att ge enklare tillgång till nödvändig dokumentation.

IST is a company that develops software for the education sector. The company's growth has led to inconsistency in its software suite, negatively impacting user and developer experience. User interface components such as buttons and forms vary in design and implementation across their services, making it challenging for users to navigate and for developers to maintain. To improve this, IST has started a project to switch to a different front-end architecture, known as micro-frontend, which will need to be accompanied by technical documentation. This project is referred to as ‘CommonUI’. Reading and contributing to documentation, especially for software, is indicated by existing literature to be perceived unappealing by developers. This thesis aims to explore developers' attitudes toward documentation and proposes Developer Experience-oriented features. The method process involves a literature review, semi-structured interviews and identifying themes using thematic analysis. The findings reject the hypothesis that developers find documentation unappealing, indicating that most developers view engaging with documentation positively, motivated by altruism. Key themes identified from the interviews include the need for examples, up-to-date, concise text, and easily findable documentation. Proposed features to improve the Developer Experience include interactive component examples, integration of documentation with design specifications, dynamic presentation of code from source files, mechanisms for user feedback, text limitations, and enhanced search functionality.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In the documentation of software architecture, it must be considered two relevant points: i) the architecture is composed by several visions, and ii) each vision identifies a set of components and interactions which allows a better understanding between developers and system programmers. The documentation of the components, when treating reusability, must present a set of information concerning its functionality and applicability in order to adapt them in applications of same domain. When we think of interaction among components, the information concerning the communication messages must be well identified so that the process of working may be clearly understood. This work shows the creation of a catalog of documentation patterns for the architecture of image processing and analysis systems approaching on the concept of design patterns and architecture visions of UML which will be used as the base for designing the Patterns. Through its use, the developers will be more sure of which is necessary to document and safer when reusing components previously tested and documented. It is also shown in this work the development of templates environment of the Patterns in the tool MoinMoinWiki aiming at creating a scenery for collaborative work and also a repository of information on documentation of systems architecture and frameworks within image domain. / Na documentação da arquitetura de software deve ser considerado dois pontos relevantes: i) a arquitetura é composta por várias visões, e ii) cada visão identifica um conjunto de componentes e interações, permitindo melhor compreensão entre desenvolvedores e projetistas do sistema. A documentação dos componentes, quando se tratando de reusabilidade, deve apresentar um conjunto de informações referente a sua funcionalidade e aplicabilidade a fim de adaptá-los em aplicações de mesmo domínio. Quando pensando em interação entre componentes, as informações relacionadas às mensagens de comunicação devem ser bem identificadas, para que o processo de funcionamento seja claramente entendido. Este trabalho apresenta a criação de um catálogo de Padrões de Documentação da Arquitetura de sistemas e frameworks para processamento e análise de imagens, abordando o conceito de design patterns e visões arquiteturais da UML, as quais servirão de base para elaboração dos padrões. Através do uso desses, os desenvolvedores sentirão mais clareza do que é necessário documentar e mais seguros em reusar componentes previamente testados e documentados. Apresenta-se também neste trabalho, o desenvolvimento de um ambiente de templates dos Padrões na ferramenta MoinMoinWiki, com o objetivo de criar um cenário para o trabalho colaborativo, e também um repositório de informações sobre a documentação da arquitetura de sistemas e frameworks no domínio de imagens.

Software developers, maintainers, and testers rely on documentation to understandthe code they are working with. However, software documentation is perceivedas a waste of effort because it is usually outdated. How documentation evolvesthrough a set of releases may show whether there is any relationship between timeand quality. The results could help future developers and managers to improvethe quality of their documentation and decrease the time developers use to analyzecode. Previous studies showed that documentation used to be scarce and low inquality, thus, this research has investigated different variables to check if the qualityof the documentation changes over time. Therefore, we have created a tool thatwould extract and calculate the quality of the comments in code blocks, classes,and methods. The results have agreed with the previous studies. The quality of thedocumentation is affected to some extent through the releases, with a tendency todecrease.

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