Can We Automatically Generate Class Comments in Pharo?
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Code comments support developers in understanding and maintaining codebases. Specifically in the Pharo environment, code comments serve as the main form of code documentation and usually convey information ranging from high-level design descriptions to low-level implementation details. Nevertheless, numerous important classes in Pharo still lack comments as developers find writing comments to be a tedious and effort-intensive task. Previous works in Java have recommended generating comments automatically to reduce commenting effort and save developers time. There exist several approaches to achieve this goal. One such popular approach is based on identifying stereotypes, i.e., a generalized set of characteristics supposed to represent an entity (object, class). However, this approach has not been tested for other programming languages. In this paper, we adopt the stereotype-based approach to automatically generate class comments in the Pharo programming environment.
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Can We Automatically Generate Class Comments in Pharo?
- 1. Can We Automatically Generate Class Comments in Pharo? Pooja Rani, Alexandre Bergel, Lino Hess, Timo Kehrer, Oscar Nierstrasz University of Bern, Switzerland Ìý International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies, Novi Sad, Serbia, 2022
- 2. 2
- 3. 3 High-quality code comments assist developers
- 4. 4 Developers find writing comments a boring and effort-intensive task
- 5. 5 To support developers in writing comments, communities suggest coding guidelines Apache Oracle Google Pharo PEP8/257
- 6. 6 To support developers in writing comments, communities suggest coding guidelines Apache Oracle Google Pharo PEP8/257
- 7. 7 To support developers in writing comments, communities suggest coding guidelines Apache Oracle Google Pharo PEP8/257
- 8. 8 To support developers in writing comments, communities suggest coding guidelines Apache Oracle Google Pharo PEP8/257
- 9. 9 - Rani et al., Empirical Software Engineering, 2021 Developers follow template inspired information types more often To support developers in writing comments, communities suggest coding guidelines Apache Oracle Google Pharo PEP8/257
- 10. 10 Color scale according to number of comments falling into a category 0 25 52 0 26 52 1 (52) 2 (52) 3 (52) 4 (52) 5 (52) 6 (52) 7 (52) O t h e r L i c e n s e D e p e n d e n c i e s C o n t r a c t s O b s e r v a t i o n s R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s E x t e n s i o s L i n k s D i s c o u r s e W a r n i n g s C o d i n g G u i d e l i n e s N a m i n g C o n v e n t i o n s T o d o c o m m e n t s C l a s s R e f e r e n c e s S u b c l a s s e s E x p l a n a t i o n R e f e r e n c e O t h e r R e s o u r c e s I m p l e m e n t a t i o n P o i n t s E x a m p l e s K e y M e s s a g e s I n s t a n c e V a r i a b l e s C o l l a b a r t o r s R e s p o n s i b i l i t y I n t e n t Categories Pharo versions (total classes) Developers follow template inspired information types more often - Rani et al., Empirical Software Engineering, 2021
- 11. 11 Can we automatically generate these information types? Color scale according to number of comments falling into a category 0 25 52 0 26 52 1 (52) 2 (52) 3 (52) 4 (52) 5 (52) 6 (52) 7 (52) O t h e r L i c e n s e D e p e n d e n c i e s C o n t r a c t s O b s e r v a t i o n s R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s E x t e n s i o s L i n k s D i s c o u r s e W a r n i n g s C o d i n g G u i d e l i n e s N a m i n g C o n v e n t i o n s T o d o c o m m e n t s C l a s s R e f e r e n c e s S u b c l a s s e s E x p l a n a t i o n R e f e r e n c e O t h e r R e s o u r c e s I m p l e m e n t a t i o n P o i n t s E x a m p l e s K e y M e s s a g e s I n s t a n c e V a r i a b l e s C o l l a b a r t o r s R e s p o n s i b i l i t y I n t e n t Categories Pharo versions (total classes)
- 12. 12 Objects are responsible members of an object community Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Object role stereotypes in 1992 in a Smalltalk Report article
- 13. 13 Objects are responsible members of an object community Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Object role stereotypes in 1992 in a Smalltalk Report article
- 14. 14 Controller Coordinator Structure Interface Information holder Objects are responsible members of an object community Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Object role stereotypes in 1992 in a Smalltalk Report article
- 15. 15 Controller Coordinator Structure Interface Information holder Objects are responsible members of an object community Object role stereotypes in 1992 in a Smalltalk Report article Stereotype-based approach
- 20. 20 Methodology Dataset Can We Automatically Generate Class Comments in Pharo? Previous works
- 21. 21 Methodology Identify class stereotype Identify method stereotypes Pharo 8 Extract method information Extract class information Fill template 1 2 3 4 5
- 22. 22 • Accessor • Getter • Mutator • Setter • Creational • Collaborator • Degnerate • Controller Method Stereotypes 1
- 23. 23 4% 4% 4% 5% 10% 16% 28% 33% Set Get Controller Creational Mutator Degenerate Collaborator Accessor Distribution of Stereotypes • Accessor • Getter • Mutator • Setter • Creational • Collaborator • Degnerate • Controller Method Stereotypes 1
- 24. 24 • Entity • Minimal Entity • Data Provider • Commander • Boundary • Factory • Empty • Small • Controller • Pure Controller • Large • Lazy • Degenerate • Data Class Stereotypes 2 4% 4% 4% 5% 10% 16% 28% 33% Set Get Controller Creational Mutator Degenerate Collaborator Accessor • Accessor • Getter • Mutator • Setter • Creational • Collaborator • Degnerate • Controller Method Stereotypes 1 Distribution of Stereotypes
- 25. 25 0% 1% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 3% 5% 6% 7% 9% 23% 42% PureController Lazy Controller Data Entity Factory MinimalEntity Empty Commander Small Large Degenerate Boundary DataProvider 4% 4% 4% 5% 10% 16% 28% 33% Set Get Controller Creational Mutator Degenerate Collaborator Accessor • Entity • Minimal Entity • Data Provider • Commander • Boundary • Factory • Empty • Small • Controller • Pure Controller • Large • Lazy • Degenerate • Data Class Stereotypes 2 • Accessor • Getter • Mutator • Setter • Creational • Collaborator • Degnerate • Controller Method Stereotypes 1 Distribution of Stereotypes
- 26. 26 • Entity • Minimal Entity • Data Provider • Commander • Boundary • Factory • Empty • Small • Controller • Pure Controller • Large • Lazy • Degenerate • Data Class Stereotypes 2 • Accessor • Getter • Mutator • Setter • Creational • Collaborator • Degnerate • Controller Method Stereotypes 1
- 28. 28 • External used methods • Internally used methods Method Information 3 • Class name • Class stereotype description • Classes used by the class • Dependent classes • Relevant keywords Class Information 4 Small Controller Pure Controller Large Lazy Degenerate Data otypes reational ollaborator egnerate ontroller eotypes
- 29. 29 • External used methods • Internally used methods Method Information 3 • Class name • Class stereotype description • Classes used by the class • Dependent classes • Relevant keywords Class Information 4 Small Controller Pure Controller Large Lazy Degenerate Data otypes reational ollaborator egnerate ontroller eotypes
- 30. 30 • External used methods • Internally used methods Method Information 3 • Class name • Class stereotype description • Classes used by the class • Dependent classes • Relevant keywords Class Information 4 Small Controller Pure Controller Large Lazy Degenerate Data otypes reational ollaborator egnerate ontroller eotypes
- 31. 31 24 class comments (auto generated) 3 developers: each comment evaluated by three 42 evaluations: 7 developers completed it 3 metrics: Adequacy, Conciseness, Comprehensibility Evaluation
- 32. 32 Evaluation Adequacy: 44% participants said the comment is missing some important information
- 33. 33 Conciseness- 54% participants said the comment contains a lot of unnecessary information Evaluation Adequacy: 44% participants said the comment is missing some important information