软件中代码注释质量问题研究综述

Survey on Quality of Software Code Comments

代码注释作为辅助软件开发群体协作的关键机制,被开发者所广泛使用以提升开发效率.然而,由于代码注释并不直接影响软件运行,使其常被开发者忽视,导致出现代码注释质量问题,进而影响开发效率.代码注释中存在的质量问题会影响开发者理解相关代码,甚至可能产生误解从而引入代码缺陷,因此这一问题受到研究者的广泛关注.采用系统文献调研,对近年来国内外学者在代码注释质量问题上的研究工作进行系统的分析.从代码注释质量的评价维度、度量指标以及提升策略这3个方面总结研究现状,并提出当前研究所存在的不足、挑战及建议.

As an essential mechanism of group collaboration in software development,code comments are widely used by developers to improve the efficiency of specific developing tasks.However,code comments do not directly affect the software operation,and developers often ignore them,which leads to poor quality of code comments and affects development efficiency.Quality issues of code comments hinder code understanding,bring misunderstanding,or even introduce bugs,which receive widespread attention from researchers.This study systematically analyzes the research work of global scholars on quality issues of code comments in recent years by literature review.It also summarizes related studies in three aspects:evaluation dimensions of code comment quality,indicators of code comment quality,and strategies to promote code comment quality and points out shortcomings,challenges,and suggestions for the current research.