Program comprehension (also program understanding or

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code comprehension) is a domain of computer science concerned with the ways

software engineers Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

maintain existing source code. The cognitive and other processes involved are identified and studied. The results are used to develop tools and training. Software maintenance tasks have five categories: adaptive maintenance,

corrective maintenance Corrective maintenance is a maintenance task performed to identify, isolate, and rectify a fault so that the failed equipment, machine, or system can be restored to an operational condition within the tolerances or limits established for in-servi ...

, perfective maintenance,

code reuse In software development (and computer programming in general), code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles. Code reuse may be achiev ...

, and code leverage.

Theories of program comprehension

Titles of works on program comprehension include * ''Using a behavioral theory of program comprehension in software engineering'' * ''The concept assignment problem in program understanding'', and * ''Program Comprehension During Software Maintenance and Evolution''. Computer scientists pioneering program comprehension include Ruven Brooks, Ted J. Biggerstaff, and Anneliese von Mayrhauser.

Theories of program comprehension

See also