Contemporary Software Peer Review: Modern practices, fault prediction, and extraction of design decisions

同行评审已被公认为软件工程的最佳实践超过35年。从根本上说，它是一种质量保证技术，依赖于专家相互检查工作。过于正式的过程限制了审查实践的采用，并且不会增加审查的有效性。当代的同行评审包含了一系列技术，这些技术允许评审过程适合开发团队，并且是轻量级的，并且可以被管理人员测量。从业者已经推动了支持当代同行评审的工具的发展。虽然这种审查风格在软件公司中以各种形式被采用，但还没有对其进行系统的研究。此外，从同步的基于纸张的评审到异步的工具支持的评审的转变留下了丰富的关于软件工件的复杂讨论的档案。该存档的非结构化性质意味着它不能用于故障预测和系统历史总结。我开发了一个工具ACER，它可以准确地从自由格式的文本和代码片段中提取代码元素，如类和方法。我的工作将(1)系统地向从业者和研究人员描述当代评论；(2)帮助开发人员隔离系统的脆弱区域并理解系统的演化。我的研究目标是：1.1：对包括AMD和微软在内的软件公司的同行评审进行系统调查；1.2：在新环境（DND）中适应和验证当代评审；1.3：确定评审制度变化对软件质量的影响；2.1：使用ACER来挖掘评审讨论的内容，以预测评审工作应该集中在哪里；2.2：从评审讨论中提取系统演变和设计决策。我的首要目标是推动软件开发成为一门工程学科，并帮助政府和公司按时按预算生产高质量的软件。

Peer review has been acknowledged as a software engineering best practice for over 35 years. It is fundamentally a quality assurance technique that relies on experts checking each other's work. Overly formal processes limit adoption of review practices and do not increase review effectiveness.Contemporary peer review encompasses a series of techniques that allow the review process to fit the development team and to be both lightweight and measurable by managers. Practitioners have driven the development of and tools that support contemporary peer review. While this style of review has been adopted in various forms in software firms, there has been no systematic study of it. Furthermore, the shift from synchronous paper-based review to asynchronous tool-supported review has left a rich archive of sophisticated discussion of software artifacts. The unstructured nature of this archive has meant that it has not been used for fault prediction and summarization of system history. I have developed a tool, ACER, that can accurately extract code elements, such as classes and methods, from freeform text and code snippets. My work will (1) systematically describe contemporary review to practitioners and researchers; (2) aid developers in isolating the vulnerable areas of a system and understanding system evolution. My research objectives are to1.1: conduct a systematic investigation of peer review in software firms, including AMD and Microsoft,1.2: adapt and validate contemporary review in new settings (DND),1.3: determine the impact of variations in review regime on software quality,2.1: use ACER to mine the content of review discussion to predict where review effort should be focussed,2.2: extract system evolution and design decisions from review discussions. My overarching goal is to advance software development as an engineering discipline and to help government and firms produce high-quality software on time and on budget.