2018 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)
Download PDF

Abstract

Work in information foraging theory presumes that software developers have a predefined patch of information (e.g., a Java class) within which they conduct a search task. However, not all tasks have easily delineated patches. Requirements traceability, where a developer must traverse a combination of technical artifacts and social structures, is one such task. We examine requirements socio-technical graphs to describe the key relationships that a patch should encode to assist in a requirements traceability task. We then present an algorithm, based on spreading activation, which extracts a relevant set of these relationships as a patch. We test this algorithm in requirements repositories of four open-source software projects. Our results show that applying this algorithm creates useful patches with reduced superfluous information.
Like what you’re reading?
Already a member?
Get this article FREE with a new membership!

Related Articles