Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon

Oral Comprehensive Exam Details

Analysis Techniques for Program Comprehension

Abstract

Program comprehension is the predecessor of many other software maintenance activities. Techniques helping the understanding have great influence on the overall efficiency and efficacy of the software productivity. Traditional analysis techniques being used for code optimization and software verification could gather useful global information about a program automatically. But they are not often used in assisting understanding. This research starts with a survey of the cognitive studies of the understanding process and then reviewed the various analysis techniques from the perspective of comprehension. The fundamental difference between optimization or verification with comprehension reveals new research problems in this area.