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Computer Science > Software Engineering

arXiv:2103.07487 (cs)
[Submitted on 12 Mar 2021]

Title:How Developers Choose Names

Authors:Dror G. Feitelson, Ayelet Mizrahi, Nofar Noy, Aviad Ben
Shabat, Or Eliyahu, Roy Sheffer
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    Abstract: The names of variables and functions serve as implicit
    documentation and are instrumental for program comprehension. But
    choosing good meaningful names is hard. We perform a sequence of
    experiments in which a total of 334 subjects are required to
    choose names in given programming scenarios. The first experiment
    shows that the probability that two developers would select the
    same name is low: in the 47 instances in our experiments the
    median probability was only 6.9%. At the same time, given that a
    specific name is chosen, it is usually understood by the majority
    of developers. Analysis of the names given in the experiment
    suggests a model where naming is a (not necessarily cognizant or
    serial) three-step process: (1) selecting the concepts to include
    in the name, (2) choosing the words to represent each concept,
    and (3) constructing a name using these words. A followup
    experiment, using the same experimental setup, then checked
    whether using this model explicitly can improve the quality of
    names. The results were that names selected by subjects using the
    model were judged by two independent judges to be superior to
    names chosen in the original experiment by a ratio of two-to-one.
    Using the model appears to encourage the use of more concepts and
    longer names.

Comments:    17 pages (incl. appendix), 10 figures, 3 tables.
             Accepted to IEEE Trans. Software Engineering
Subjects:    Software Engineering (cs.SE)
ACM classes: D.2.3
DOI:         10.1109/TSE.2020.2976920
Cite as:     arXiv:2103.07487 [cs.SE]
             (or arXiv:2103.07487v1 [cs.SE] for this version)

Submission history

From: Dror Feitelson [view email]
[v1] Fri, 12 Mar 2021 19:05:07 UTC (67 KB)
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