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PWL #62: Fixing Faults: Abbreviated vs. Full-word Identifier Names

M
Hosted By
Max P. and 2 others
PWL #62: Fixing Faults: Abbreviated vs. Full-word Identifier Names

Details

Details
• What we'll do
Main Event: Max Payton will be presenting Fixing Faults in C and Java Source Code: Abbreviated vs. Full-word Identifier Names (http://www2.unibas.it/gscanniello/Giuseppe_Scanniello%40unibas/Home_files/TOSEM.pdf)
" We carried out a family of controlled experiments to investigate whether the use of abbreviated identifier names, with respect to full-word identifier names, affects fault fixing in C and Java source code. This family consists of an original (or baseline) controlled experiment and three replications. We involved 100 participants with different backgrounds and experiences in total. Overall results suggested that there is no difference in terms of effort, effectiveness, and efficiency to fix faults, when source code contains either only abbreviated or only full-word identifier names. We also conducted a qualitative study to understand the values, beliefs, and assumptions that inform and shape fault fixing when identifier names are either abbreviated or full-word. We involved in this qualitative study six professional developers with one to three years of work experience. A number of insights emerged from this qualitative study and can be considered a useful complement to the quantitative results from our family of experiments. One of the most interesting insight is that developers, when working on source code with abbreviated identifier names, adopt a more methodical approach to identify and fix faults by extending their focus point and only in a few cases they expand abbreviated identifiers.

Mini Event: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/ to get some humor into our day

Inspired by this talk:
https://www.hillelwayne.com/talks/what-we-know-we-dont-know/

• Important to know
This meetup will be ONLINE! With COVID-19 isolation in effect, we're going to try to still get everyone together. We'll post a link to event as soon as it's ready, both here and in the slack channel, so feel free to join

As a chapter of Papers We Love we abide by and enforce the PWL Code of Conduct (https://github.com/papers-we-love/seattle/blob/master/code-of-conduct.md) at our events. Please give it a read, plan on acting like an adult, and involve one of the organizers if you need help.

Stop slacking and join us in the #seattle channel at https://papersweloveslack.herokuapp.com!

If you have a paper you'd like to present, or even just a mini, please hit up one of the organizers :) We're always looking for more presenters.

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