@article {129,
	title = {How effective developers investigate source code: An exploratory study},
	journal = {Ieee Transactions on Software Engineering},
	volume = {30},
	number = {12},
	year = {2004},
	note = {Times Cited: 6},
	pages = {889-903},
	abstract = {Prior to performing a software change task, developers must discover and understand the subset of the system relevant to the task. Since the behavior exhibited by individual developers when investigating a software system is influenced by intuition, experience, and skill, there is often significant variability in developer effectiveness. To understand the factors that contribute to effective program investigation behavior, we conducted a study of five developers performing a change task on a medium-size open source system. We isolated the factors related to effective program investigation behavior by performing a detailed qualitative analysis of the program investigation behavior of successful and unsuccessful developers. We report on these factors as a set of detailed observations, such as evidence of the phenomenon of inattention blindness by developers skimming source code. In general, our results support the intuitive notion that a methodical and structured approach to program investigation is the most effective. Index Terms-Software evolution, empirical software engineering, program investigation, program understanding.},
	author = {Robillard, M. P. and Coelho, W. and Murphy, G. C.}
}
