An automatic assistant for program understanding

The paper explores the problem of understanding imperative programs. It points out the role of the procedural nature of knowledge representation as the main reason for difficulties in understanding this type of program. The paper suggests a generic process for reasoning about the knowledge embodied in an imperative program as a way to confront this problem. It proceeds with a concrete implementation of the process and a tool that has been constructed accordingly, thus demonstrating its practical usefulness. The goal of this work is to show a possible direction in automating the software development process rather than presenting a definite solution