TITLE:
A Survey of Concepts Location Enhancement for Program Comprehension and Maintenance
AUTHORS:
Nouh Alhindawi, Jamal Alsakran, Ali Rodan, Hossam Faris
KEYWORDS:
Concept Location, Feature Location, Program Comprehension, Software Maintenance, Evolution, Information Retrieval
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Software Engineering and Applications,
Vol.7 No.5,
May
20,
2014
ABSTRACT: When correcting a fault,
adding a new concept or feature, or adapting a system to conform to a new
platform, software engineers must first find the relevant parts of the code
that correspond to a particular change. This is termed as concept or feature
location process. Several techniques have been introduced which automate some
or all of the process of concept location. Those techniques rely heavily on
code comprehension as it is considered a prerequisite when attempting to
maintain any software system. It provides a comprehensive overview of large
body work which is beneficial to researchers and practitioners. This paper
presents an overview of code comprehension categorization and consequence. A
systematic literature survey of concept location enhancement techniques is also
presented. Moreover, the paper presents an overview of the role of concept
location in program comprehension and maintenance and discusses information
retrieval techniques to advance concept location.