Understanding and Leveraging Context in Code Review

理解和利用代码审查中的上下文

• 批准号: RGPIN-2021-03809
• 负责人: Baysal, Olga
• 金额: $ 2.55万
• 依托单位: Carleton University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=750336
• 关键词: Understanding; Leveraging; Context; Code; Review

Code review, i.e., manual inspection of source code changes, is recognized to be one of the most effective QA practices in software development as it delivers benefits of identifying software defects and improving software quality. Many software companies (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Shopify, Mozilla) have employed code reviews extensively. However, due to the volume of submitted contributions and the need to handle them in a timely manner, many code review processes have become more lightweight and less formal in nature. This evolution of the review process increases the risks of letting defects slip into the code as reviewers are unable to detect all of them. One of the reasons for this failure to detect defects and, as a result, reduced software quality, can be attributed to poor understanding of the context surrounding the developer's working environment. The context in a software development setting, as defined by Gail Murphy, is the "information about the system under development and the environment and process in which the system is being developed". While previous research has extensively explored what factors, both social and technical, impact code review and its quality, the notion of context has not been considered. What kinds of context are relevant to code review? How can we capture, model, and explain various kinds of context to support code review tasks? What tools can we develop to use the context efficiently? This research program aims at understanding and leveraging the kinds of context that are relevant to code review to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The goal of this work is twofold: 1) to better understand the context surrounding code review processes and practice by extracting, capturing, and modelling it from various development artifacts, and 2) to leverage this context to develop models, techniques, and tools to support developer daily tasks and activities. This research will significantly impact the Canadian software industry by making it more effective in their work processes. Developers will be better supported in completing their daily tasks as their tools will be better tuned to different kinds of context that are relevant to these tasks. By understanding and leveraging context in code review, we aim at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the process, increasing the quality of the software systems by reducing software defects, speeding up the development cycle, and improving the overall maintainability of the software systems.

代码审查（即手动检查源代码更改）被认为是软件开发中最有效的质量检查实践之一，因为它为识别软件缺陷和改善软件质量提供了好处。许多软件公司（例如Google，Microsoft，Shopify，Mozilla）广泛采用了代码评论。但是，由于提交的贡献的数量以及需要及时处理它们的需要，许多代码审查过程本质上变得更加轻巧，不那么正式。审查过程的这种演变增加了让缺陷陷入代码的风险，因为审阅者无法检测到所有这些。这种无法检测缺陷的原因之一，因此，降低的软件质量可以归因于对开发人员工作环境周围环境的不良理解。盖尔·墨菲（Gail Murphy）定义的软件开发环境中的上下文是“有关开发系统以及开发系统的环境和过程的信息”。虽然先前的研究已广泛探讨了社会和技术，影响代码审查及其质量的哪些因素，但尚未考虑上下文的​​概念。哪种上下文与代码审查有关？我们如何捕获，建模和解释各种上下文以支持代码审核任务？我们可以开发哪些工具有效地使用上下文？ 该研究计划旨在理解和利用与代码审查相关的各种环境，以提高其效率和有效性。这项工作的目的是双重的：1）通过从各种开发文物中提取，捕获和建模，更好地了解代码审查过程和实践的上下文，以及2）利用这种环境来开发模型，技术和工具来支持开发人员日常任务和活动。这项研究将通过使其在其工作过程中更有效，从而对加拿大软件行业产生重大影响。开发人员将在完成日常任务方面得到更好的支持，因为他们的工具将更好地调整到与这些任务相关的各种上下文中。通过了解代码审查中的环境，我们旨在提高流程的效率和有效性，从而通过减少软件缺陷，加快开发周期并提高软件系统的整体可维护性来提高软件系统的质量。