The Effects of the Symbology and Spatial Arrangement of Software Specifications in a Debugging Task

摘要

This report describes the third in a series of experiments to evaluate the effects of the format of software specifications on programmer performance. The current experiment examined performance on a debugging task. Thirty-six professional programmers were presented with specifications for each of three modular-sized programs. Nine different specification formats were prepared for each program. These formats varied along two dimensions: type of symbology and spatial arrangement. The type of symbology included natural language, constrained language (PDL), and ideograms (flowchart symbols). The spatial arrangement included sequential (vertical flow), branching (flowchart), and hierarchical (tree-like). The participants compared correct specifications to error-seeded program listings. Their task was to locate the several errors per program and to correct the errors using a text editor. The program output was checked automatically and a message informed the participants whether the output was correct or incorrect. The participants were asked to continue debugging until all errors had been located and corrected. The difficulty of the debugging task was measured by the time required to detect and correct the errors and by the number of submissions required for a correct run.