Abstract :
Program comprehension is an essential part of software engineering. It is necessary when one enhances, reuses, inspects, reengineers, migrates or maintains a software system. The International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC) is a leading conference in the area of program understanding, software analysis, reverse engineering, software evolution and software visualization. Over the years, ICPC has provided a vital forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the latest advances in the art and practice of program comprehension. ICPC 2011 received more than 90 submissions in all categories, including full papers, short papers, posters, tool demonstrations, industrial challenge entries and student papers. Of these, 63 were full technical papers. All papers were reviewed by at least three members of the Program Committee. The discussions were rigorous and sometimes vigorous. We owe a debt of gratitude to these tireless members of the community. We had many excellent submissions and could not accept them all. Ultimately, we selected a set of papers that were technically strong, represented a good cross section of the community, and would foster discussion. The program includes 18 full research papers (acceptance rate 28.6%), seven short papers, four posters, five tool demonstrations and 10 student symposium papers. These numbers are in line with previous years, thus maintaining the good reputation of ICPC and ensuring a high-quality conference. The best papers at ICPC 2011 will be invited to submit extended, revised versions to the journal Information and Software Technology. This year, we introduce two new elements: an industrial challenge problem and a student research symposium. At ICPC2010 in Braga, Portugal, a panel of participants from industry was convened in an attempt to make our research more directly relevant. Building on that initial effort, Andrew Begel of Microsoft Research and Jochen Quante of Robert Bosch GmbH have set an indus- rial challenge that is open to all attendees. Participants were invited use their program comprehension tools to find and fix a bug in a robot controller, as set out by the Industrial Track Chairs. The Student Research Symposium seeks to be a venue for students at all levels, from undergraduate to graduate, to share their research. The symposium has been organized by Denys Poshyvanyk and Massimiliano di Penta. Ten papers from the symposium are included in these proceedings.
