Theories and techniques of program understanding
Santanu Paul, Atul Prakash, Erich Buss, John L. Henshaw · Conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative Research · 1991
Understanding programs written by others is a difficult task. Most maintenance tasks in software require an understanding of the source code as a first step. Unfortunately, in most cases, the source code of a program is the only reliable documentation of its behavior. As a result, maintainers have to rely heavily on code browsing to acquire the necessary information. This paper surveys the various theories that have been proposed to explain the process of understanding, considers the different techniques used by the tools that are employed, and discusses their relative merits and demerits.