Robert Bruce Kelsey
Abstract
Analyzing, diagnosing, and proposing fixes to problems in complex software is essentially a linguistic activity: we think in languages such as C and English, we analyze written problem reports, we read listings. In cognitive psychology and interpretation theory, the linguistic constraints upon cognition are well established; but with the exception of those authors working within the field of Speech Act Theory, little has been said about how these constraints affect software problem diagnosis or what we can do to overcome these constraints. This paper examines some of the linguistic aspects of software problem analysis, showing how these may contribute to the bad fix, and then describes a change specification procedure specifically designed to help development teams overcome some of the liabilities of interpreting complex software failures.
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Index Terms
- Bad fixes, change specifications, and linguistic constraints on problem diagnosis
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