An Eye Tracking Study on MISRA C Coding Guidelines
Alexander Homann, Lisa Grabinger, Florian Häuser, Jürgen Mottok · 2023
C is one of the most widely used programming languages - MISRA C is one of the most known sets of coding guidelines for C. This paper examines the usefulness and comprehensibility of the MISRA C:2012 guidelines in an eye tracking study. There, subjects encounter non-compliant code in four different code review settings: with no additional reference, with an actual MISRA C guideline, with a case-specific interpretation of a MISRA C guideline, and with a compliant version of the code. The data collected was analyzed not only in terms of the four presentation styles, but also by dividing the subjects into experience levels based on their semesters of study or years of work experience. Regarding the difference between actual and interpreted guidelines, we found that for interpreted guidelines the error detection rate is higher whereas the duration and frequency of visits to the guideline itself are mainly lower. This suggest that the actual guidelines are less useful and more difficult to understand. The former is contradicted by the subjects’ opinions: when surveyed, they rated the usefulness of the actual guidelines higher.