Improving software comprehension process by Adoption of Cognitive Theories in large-scale complex software maintenance - An empirical research of cognitive theories in software maintenance

Abstract

During the software maintenance process software comprehension is a time-consuming procedure. Fortunately, there are existing cognitive theories designed to improve software comprehension process. In this article, we intend to review six theories and perform an industrial case study in maintenance of a complex system. In order to find out whether to adopt cognitive theories in a specific maintenance task to improve the process of understanding the software or not, all six cognitive theories will be evaluated theoretically and one of them will be adopted in an industrial case study.