Inference-based and expectation-based processing in program comprehension

This paper formally distinguishes between two variants of top-down comprehension (as originally described by Brooks (1983) and Soloway (1984)). The first is inference-based comprehension, where the programmer derives meaning from cliched implementations in the code. The second is expectation-based comprehension, where the programmer has pre-generated expectations of the code’s meaning. The paper describes the distinguishing features of the two variants, and uses these characteristics as the basis for an empirical study. This study establishes their existence, and identifies their relationship with programmers’ domain and coding standards familiarity.