arXiv subjects

Françoise Détienne

Publications and source records attributed to Françoise Détienne.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

Measuring Cognitive Activities in Software Engineering

This paper presents an approach to the study of cognitive activities in collaborative software development. This approach has been developed by a multidisciplinary team made up of software engineers and cognitive psychologists. The basis of this approach is to improve our understanding of software development by observing professionals at work. The goal is to derive lines of conduct or good practices based on observations and analyses of the processes that are naturally used by software engineers. The strategy involved is derived from a standard approach in cognitive science. It is based on the videotaping of the activities of software engineers, transcription of the videos, coding of the transcription, defining categories from the coded episodes and defining cognitive behaviors or dialogs from the categories. This project presents two original contributions that make this approach generic in software engineering. The first contribution is the introduction of a formal hierarchical coding scheme, which will enable comparison of various types of observations. The second is the merging of psychological and statistical analysis approaches to build a cognitive model. The details of this new approach are illustrated with the initial data obtained from the analysis of technical review meetings.

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arXiv2007

The Effect of Object-Oriented Programming Expertise in Several Dimensions of Comprehension Strategies

This study analyzes object-oriented (OO) program comprehension by experts and novices. We examine the effect of expertise in three dimensions of comprehension strategies: the scope of the comprehension, the top-down versus bottom-up direction of the processes, and the guidance of the comprehension activity. Overall, subjects were similar in the scope of their comprehension, although the experts tended to consult more files. We found strong evidence of top-down, inference-driven behaviors, as well as multiple guidance in expert comprehension. We also found evidence of execution-based guidance and less use of top-down processes in novice comprehension. Guidance by inheritance and composition relationships in the OO program was not dominant, but nevertheless played a substantial role in expert program comprehension. However, these static relationships more closely tied to the OO nature of the program were exploited poorly by novices. To conclude, these results are discussed with respect to the literature on procedural program comprehension.

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arXiv2007

Expert Programming Knowledge: a Schema-Based Approach

The topic of this chapter is the role of expert programming knowledge in the understanding activity. In the "schema-based approach", the role of semantic structures is emphasized whereas, in the "control-flow approach", the role of syntactic structures is emphasized. Data which support schema-based models of understanding are presented. Data which are more consistent with the "control-flow approach" allow to discuss the limits of the former kind of models.

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arXiv2007

What model(s) for program understanding?

The first objective of this paper is to present and discuss various types of models of program understanding. They are discussed in relation to models of text understanding. The second objective of this paper is to assess the effect of purpose for reading, or more specifically programming task, on the cognitive processes involved and representations constructed in program understanding. This is done in the theoretical framework of van Dijk and Kintsch's model of text understanding (1983).

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arXiv2007

An empirical study of software reuse by experts in object-oriented design

This paper presents an empirical study of the software reuse activity by expert designers in the context of object-oriented design. Our study focuses on the three following aspects of reuse : (1) the interaction between some design processes, e.g. constructing a problem representation, searching for and evaluating solutions, and reuse processes, i.e. retrieving and using previous solutions, (2) the mental processes involved in reuse, e.g. example-based retrieval or bottom-up versus top-down expanding of the solution, and (3) the mental representations constructed throughout the reuse activity, e.g. dynamic versus static representations. Some implications of these results for the specification of software reuse support environments are discussed.

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arXiv2007

Negotiation in collaborative assessment of design solutions: an empirical study on a Concurrent Engineering process

In Concurrent engineering, design solutions are not only produced by individuals specialized in a given field. Due to the team nature of the design activity, solutions are negotiated. Our objective is to analyse the argumentation processes leading to these negotiated solutions. These processes take place in the meetings which group together specialists with a co-design aim. We conducted cognitive ergonomics research work during the definition phase of an aeronautical design project in which the participants work in Concurrent Engineering. We recorded, retranscribed and analysed 7 multi-speciality meetings. These meetings were organised, as needed, to assess the integration of the solutions of each speciality into a global solution. We found that there are three main design proposal assessment modes which can be combined in these meetings: (a) analytical assessment mode, (b) comparative assessment mode (c) analogical assessment mode. Within these assessment modes, different types of arguments are used. Furthermore we found a typical temporal negotiation process.

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arXiv2006

Analysing viewpoints in design through the argumentation process

We present an empirical study aimed at analysing the use of viewpoints in an industrial Concurrent Engineering context. Our focus is on the viewpoints expressed in the argumentative process taking place in evaluation meetings. Our results show that arguments enabling a viewpoint or proposal to be defended are often characterized by the use of constraints. Firstly, we show that, even if some constraints are apparently identically used by the different specialists involved in meetings, various meanings and weightings are associated with these constraints by these different specialists. Secondly, we show that the implicit or explicit nature of constraints depends on several interlocutive factors. Thirdly, we show that an argument often covers not only one constraint but a network of constraints. The type of combination reflects viewpoints which have specific status in the meeting. Then, we will propose a first model of the dynamics of viewpoints confrontation/integration.

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arXiv2006

Users' participation to the design process in an Open Source Software online community

The objective of this research is to analyse the ways members of open-source software communities participate in design. In particular we focus on how users of an Open Source (OS) programming language (Python) participate in adding new functionalities to the language. Indeed, in the OS communities, users are highly skilled in computer sciences; they do not correspond to the common representation of end-users and can potentially participate to the design process. Our study characterizes the Python galaxy and analyses a formal process to introduce new functionalities to the language called Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) from the idea of language evolution to the PEP implementation. The analysis of a particular pushed-by-users PEP from one application domain community (financial), shows: that the design process is distributed and specialized between online and physical interactions spaces; and there are some cross participants between users and developers communities which may reveal boundary spanners roles.

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