A GUESSING MEASURE OF PROGRAM COMPREHENSION

An effective comprehension measure could be helpful in ranking programs on complexity. Measures involving filling in missing parts of a program can be adapted from the prose domain. For example, doze tests have been applied to software. We evaluated a new measure based on a fill-in-the-blank exercise conducted by an automated tool. The subject is asked to guess certain characters which are missing from a sample program which is displayed on a computer screen. The value of the measure is derived on an information-theoretic basis from the number of incorrect guesses. This measure has shown promise in experimental evaluations of its ability to measure program comprehension.