Software readability and comprehension are important factors in software maintenance. There is a large body of research on software measurement, but the actual factors that make software easier to read or easier to comprehend are not well understood. In the present study, we investigate the role of method chains and code comments in software readability and comprehension. Our analysis comprises...

The topic of source code readability has paramount importance in software engineering. Literature exists on how to write readable code; how to create analytical models and automatically predict readability; and how readability influences software cost and eventually the economy. In this article we follow a different path; we explore the question of why and how unreadable code gets written. Moti...