Lightweight Analysis of Program Evolution Using Feature Signatures

摘要0429492布朗大学随着程序的发展，由于程序员和需求的增加，它们的代码变得越来越复杂。 这种马赛克性质使程序的理解和维护变得复杂。 在大多数系统中缺乏高质量的文档使这个过程更加复杂。 一个新的开发人员可能会以与用户相同的心态来处理系统，将系统视为功能的集合，而不是其内部结构。 因此，拟议的研究根据程序片段影响的功能来描述程序片段，因此开发人员可以评估其更改可能产生的影响，特别是对意外后果发出警报。 它将通过利用程序测试套件中提供的信息来做到这一点。该提案应产生帮助程序员的工具，如更好的“语义”代码浏览器;生成更好的版本控制文档的助手;以及对测试套件依赖性的分析。 它还将研究促进未来编程语言设计的问题。 更广泛的影响将包括将新的相关思想引入软件工程教育和培训本科生进行研究。

ABSTRACT0429492Shriram KrishnamurthiBrown UniversityAs programs evolve, their code becomes increasingly tangled by the addition of both programmers and requirements. This mosaic quality complicates program comprehension and maintenance. The lack ofquality documentation in most systems further complicates this process. A new developer is likely to approach a system with the same mindset as a user, viewing the system as a collection of features, not in terms of its internal structure. The proposed research thus describesprogram fragments in terms of the features they impact, so developers can assess the effect their changes are likely to have and, in particular, be alerted to unexpected consequences. It will do this by exploiting information provided in the program's test suites.The proposal should result in tools to help programmers such as a better, ``semantic'' code browser; an assistant to generate better version-control documentation; and an analysis of test suite dependencies. It will also study questions that facilitate future programming language design. Broader impact will include introducing new, related ideas into software engineering education and training undergraduates to conduct research.