Hi I'm a grad student in Computer Science at UC Berkeley who's working on a statistical study of commenting. I'm hoping to shed some light on what causes programmers to comment by studying the CVS repositories of existing projects. I'm trying to answer questions like: - Do programmers comment source code files more often if other programmers are likely to modify them? (So far, the answer appears to be "not really.") - Do programmers tend to comment their changes more when they modify files that are already thoroughly commented? - Do programmers ever add comments without making substantial changes to the actual program? (So far, not usually)
I've been looking for related work, including: - similar statistical studies about comments - papers about what motivates programmers to comment - studies about when comments become out-of-date, or other papers that support or challenge my implicit assumption that "more thoroughly commented" means "better commented" So far I've only found one paper that has a statistical study of comments (their finding was that indoctrinating programmers in Literate Programming caused them to comment more often). I haven't found anything about what motiviates people to comment (though there is an ESP paper about what people are trying to convey by comments that comes close), or anything about when comments become out of date. Any papers or other resources you could point me at would be much appreciated. Thanks, Dave - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
