Much of software developers’ time is spent understanding unfamiliar code. To better understand how developers gain this understanding and how software development environments might be involved, a study was performed in which developers were given an unfamiliar program and asked to work on two debugging tasks and three enhancement tasks for 70 minutes. The study found that developers interleaved three activities. They began by searching for relevant code both manually and using search tools; however, they based their searches on limited and misrepresentative cues in the code, environment, and executing program, often leading to failed searches. When developers found relevant code, they followed its incoming and outgoing dependencies, often returning to it and navigating its other dependencies; while doing so, however, Eclipse’s navigational tools caused significant overhead. Developers collected code and other information that they believed would be necessary to edit, duplicate, or otherwise refer to later by encoding it in the interactive state of Eclipse’s package explorer, file tabs, and scroll bars. However, developers lost track of relevant code as these interfaces were used for other tasks, and developers were forced to find it again. These issues caused developers to spend, on average, 35 percent of their time performing the mechanics of navigation within and between source files. These observations suggest a new model of program understanding grounded in theories of information foraging and suggest ideas for tools that help developers seek, relate, and collect information in a more effective and explicit manner.

Recent research has shown that developers spend significant amounts of time navigating around code. Much of this time is spent on redundant navigations to code that the developer previously found. This is necessary today because existing development environments do not enable users to easily collect relevant information, such as web pages, textual notes, and code fragments. JASPER is a new system that allows users to collect relevant artifacts into a working set for easy reference. These artifacts are visible in a single view that represents the user's current task and allows users to easily make each artifact visible within its context. We predict that JASPER will significantly reduce time spent on redundant navigations. In addition, JASPER will facilitate multitasking, interruption management, and sharing task information with other developers.

Recent research has shown that developers spend significant amounts of time navigating around code. Much of this time is spent on redundant navigations to code that the developer previously found. This is necessary today because existing development environments do not enable users to easily collect relevant information, such as web pages, textual notes, and code fragments. JASPER is a new system that allows users to collect relevant artifacts into a working set for easy reference. These artifacts are visible in a single view that represents the user's current task and allows users to easily make each artifact visible within its context. We predict that JASPER will significantly reduce time spent on redundant navigations. In addition, JASPER will facilitate multitasking, interruption management, and sharing task information with other developers.

Recent research has shown that developers spend significant amounts of time navigating around code. Much of this time is spent on redundant navigations to code that the developer previously found. This is necessary today because existing development environments do not enable users to easily collect relevant information, such as web pages, textual notes, and code fragments. JASPER is a new system that allows users to collect relevant artifacts into a working set for easy reference. These artifacts are visible in a single view that represents the user's current task and allows users to easily make each artifact visible within its context. We predict that JASPER will significantly reduce time spent on redundant navigations. In addition, JASPER will facilitate multitasking, interruption management, and sharing task information with other developers.