An ontology toolkit for problem domain concept location in program comprehension

Abstract

Programmers are able to understand source code because they are able to relate program elements (e.g. modules, objects, or functions), with the real world concepts these elements are addressing. The main goal of this work is to enhance current program comprehension by systematically creating bidirectional mappings between domain concepts and source code. To achieve this, semantic bridges are required between natural language terms used in the problem domain and program elements written using formal programming languages. These bridges are created by an inference engine over a multi-ontology environment, including an ontological representation of the program, the problem domain, and the real world effects program execution produces. These ontologies are populated with data collected from both domains, and enriched using available Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval techniques.