TY - GEN
T1 - To Memorize or to Document
T2 - International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES)
AU - Krüger, Jacob
AU - Hebig, Regina
PY - 2023/12/2
Y1 - 2023/12/2
N2 - When developing, maintaining, or evolving a system, developers need different types of knowledge (e.g., domain, processes, architecture). They may have memorized (but potentially not documented) the knowledge they perceive important, while they need to recover knowledge that they could not memorize. Previous research has focused on knowledge recovery, but not on what knowledge developers consider important to memorize or document. We address this gap by reporting a survey among 37 participants in which we investigated developers’ perspectives on different types of knowledge. Our results indicate that the developers consider certain types of knowledge more important than others, particularly with respect to memorizing them—while all of them should be documented, using specific means. Such insights help researchers and practitioners understand developers’ knowledge and documentation needs within processes, thereby guiding practices and new techniques.
AB - When developing, maintaining, or evolving a system, developers need different types of knowledge (e.g., domain, processes, architecture). They may have memorized (but potentially not documented) the knowledge they perceive important, while they need to recover knowledge that they could not memorize. Previous research has focused on knowledge recovery, but not on what knowledge developers consider important to memorize or document. We address this gap by reporting a survey among 37 participants in which we investigated developers’ perspectives on different types of knowledge. Our results indicate that the developers consider certain types of knowledge more important than others, particularly with respect to memorizing them—while all of them should be documented, using specific means. Such insights help researchers and practitioners understand developers’ knowledge and documentation needs within processes, thereby guiding practices and new techniques.
KW - Documentation
KW - Forgetting
KW - Human Memory
KW - Knowledge
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85195261421&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_3
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_3
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 978-3-031-49265-5
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)
SP - 39
EP - 56
BT - Product-Focused Software Process Improvement
A2 - Kadgien, Regine
A2 - Jedlitschka, Andreas
A2 - Janes, Andrea
A2 - Lenarduzzi, Valentina
A2 - Li, Xiaozhou
PB - Springer
Y2 - 10 December 2023 through 13 December 2023
ER -