Recognizing eye tracking traits for source code review

Abstract

Source code review is a core activity in software engineering where a reviewer examines the code with the intention of finding bugs in the program. A lot of research has been carried out in understanding how software engineers perform code comprehension; however contribution of eye tracking traits seems to have not been addressed. This paper outlines a study conducted in an industrial environment of software engineers. It focused on understanding the visual attention of subjects with programming skills and subjects without programming skills and recognize the eye tracking traits required for source code review. The results indicate a significant difference in gaze behaviors of these groups. The key aspects of subjects with programming skills while source code review are required to have certain eye tracking traits like better code coverage, attention span on error lines and comments.