One of the main reasons why developers investigate code history is to search for the rationale for code commits. Existing work found that developers report that rationale is one of the most important aspects to understand code changes and that it can be quite difficult to find. While this finding strongly points out the fact that understanding the rationale for code commits is a serious problem for software engineers, no current research efforts have pursued understanding in detail what specifically developers are searching for when they search for rationale. In other words, while the rationale for code commits is informally defined as, "Why was this code implemented this way?" this question could refer to aspects of the code as disparate as, "Why was it necessary to implement this code?"; "Why is this the way in which it was implemented?"; or "Why was the code implemented at that moment?" Our goal with this study is to improve our understanding of what software developers mean when they talk about the rationale for code commits, i.e., how they "unfold" rationale. We additionally study which components of rationale developers find important, which ones they normally need to find, which ones they consider specifically difficult to find, and which ones they normally record in their own code commits. This new, detailed understanding of the components of the rationale for code commits may serve as inspiration for novel techniques to support developers in seeking and accurately recording rationale. / MS / Modern software systems evolution is based on the contribution of a large number of developers. In version control systems, developers introduce packaged changes called code commits for various reasons. In this process of modifying the code, the software developers make some decisions. These decisions need to be understood by other software developers. The question “why the code is this way?” is used by software developers to ask for the rationale behind code changes. The question could refer to aspects of the code as disparate as, “Why was it necessary to implement this code?”; “Why is this the way in which it was implemented?”; or “Why was the code implemented at that moment?” Our goal with this study is to improve our understanding of what software developers mean when they talk about the rationale for code commits, i.e., how they “unfold” rationale. We additionally study which components of rationale developers nd important, which ones they normally need to nd, which ones they consider specically dicult to nd, and which ones they normally record in their own code commits. This new, detailed understanding of the components of the rationale for code commits will allow researchers and tools builders to understand what the developers mean when they mention rationale. Therefore, assisting the development of tools and techniques to support the developers when seeking and recording rationale.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/95887 |
| Date | 06 June 2018 |
| Creators | Alsafwan, Khadijah Ahmad |
| Contributors | Computer Science, Servant Cortes, Francisco Javier, Meng, Na, Tilevich, Eli |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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