Impacts of coding practices on readability

Rodrigo Magalhes Dos Santos; Marco Aurélio Gerosa

doi:10.1145/3196321.3196342

Impacts of coding practices on readability

Rodrigo Magalhes Dos Santos, Marco Aurélio Gerosa

Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, School of

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

Several conventions and standards aim to improve maintainability of software code. However, low levels of code readability perceived by developers still represent a barrier to their daily work. In this paper, we describe a survey that assessed the impact of a set of Java coding practices on the readability perceived by software developers. While some practices promoted an enhancement of readability, others did not show statistically significant effects. Interestingly, one of the practices worsened the readability. Our results may help to identify coding conventions with a positive impact on readability and, thus, guide the creation of coding standards.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2018 ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018
Publisher	IEEE Computer Society
Pages	277-285
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Print)	9781450357142
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3196321.3196342
State	Published - May 28 2018
Event	ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018, collocated with the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018 - Gothenburg, Sweden Duration: May 27 2018 → May 28 2018

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
ISSN (Print)	0270-5257

Conference

Conference	ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018, collocated with the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018
Country/Territory	Sweden
City	Gothenburg
Period	5/27/18 → 5/28/18

Keywords

code comprehension
code readability
coding best practices
programming style
software developers' opinions survey

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software

Access to Document

10.1145/3196321.3196342

Cite this

Impacts of coding practices on readability. / Dos Santos, Rodrigo Magalhes; Gerosa, Marco Aurélio.
Proceedings - 2018 ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018. IEEE Computer Society, 2018. p. 277-285 (Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Dos Santos, RM & Gerosa, MA 2018, Impacts of coding practices on readability. in Proceedings - 2018 ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018. Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 277-285, ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2018, collocated with the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden, 5/27/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196321.3196342

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abstract = "Several conventions and standards aim to improve maintainability of software code. However, low levels of code readability perceived by developers still represent a barrier to their daily work. In this paper, we describe a survey that assessed the impact of a set of Java coding practices on the readability perceived by software developers. While some practices promoted an enhancement of readability, others did not show statistically significant effects. Interestingly, one of the practices worsened the readability. Our results may help to identify coding conventions with a positive impact on readability and, thus, guide the creation of coding standards.",

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Impacts of coding practices on readability

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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