Program Comprehension: Investigating the Effects of Naming Style and Documentation

In both commercial and academic environments, software development frameworks are an important tool in the construction of industrial strength software solutions. Despite the role they play in present day software development, little research has gone into understanding which aspects of their design, influence the way software developers use frameworks at the source code level. This paper investigates how the comprehensibility of an application’s source code is affected by two factors: the naming styles for framework interfaces, and the availability of interface documentation. Results show that using a descriptive interface naming style is an effective way to aid a developer’s comprehension. Documentation also plays an important role, but it increases the amount of time a developer will spend studying the source code.