Title: Integrating Runtime Values with Source Code to Facilitate Program Comprehension,
Abstract: An inherently abstract nature of source code makes programs difficult to
understand. In our research, we designed three techniques utilizing concrete
values of variables and other expressions during program execution.
RuntimeSearch is a debugger extension searching for a given string in all
expressions at runtime. DynamiDoc generates documentation sentences containing
examples of arguments, return values and state changes. RuntimeSamp augments
source code lines in the IDE (integrated development environment) with sample
variable values. In this post-doctoral article, we briefly describe these three
approaches and related motivational studies, surveys and evaluations. We also
reflect on the PhD study, providing advice for current students. Finally,
short-term and long-term future work is described.