Dissertation Proposal - Sharif Ahmed

Art of Code Review: Examining the Utility of Review Comments, Predictors, Non-verbal Cues, and Sustainability

Presented by Sharif Ahmed, Computing PhD Computer Science emphasis

Hybrid presentation: City Center Plaza 352 or register to attend online via Zoom

Abstract

Code Review is crucial for advancing computer science, particularly in Software Engineering. It ensures high-quality, reliable software, contributes to the reliability of AI systems and addresses security vulnerabilities. Effective peer code review requires helpful comments and supportive automated tools in collaborative development. It is important to ensure these Code Review comments serve their purposes. This proposal reflects the evolution of research on the usefulness of Code Review comments. First, I examine papers that define the usefulness of Code Review comments, mine and annotate datasets, study developers’ perceptions, analyze factors from different aspects, and use classifiers to predict the usefulness of Code Review comments automatically. Second, I investigate the usefulness of Code Review comments through novel textual feature-based and untapped featureless approaches. Third, I present the generalization performance of the benchmark models and datasets, subsequently providing their explanations. Fourth, I dive into the utility of Code Review comments by scrutinizing the non-verbal cues that often carry emotive or instructive weight for developers.

Committee

Dr. Nasir Eisty (Chair), Dr. Elena Sherman, Dr. Francesca Spezzano