Using a behavioral theory of program comprehension in software engineering
Ruven Brooks · International Conference on Software Engineering · 1978
A theory is presented of how a programmer goes about understanding a program. The theory is based on a representation of knowledge about programs as a succession of knowledge domains which bridge between the problem domain and the executing program. A hypothesis and verify process is used by programmers to reconstruct these domains when they seek to understand a program.The theory is useful in several ways in software engineering: It makes accurate predictions about the effectiveness of documentation; it can be used to systematically evaluate and critique other claims about documentation, and it may even be a useful guideline to a programmer in actually constructing documentation.