Understanding Exception Handling: Viewpoints of Novices and Experts

Several recent studies indicate that many industrial applications exhibit poor quality in the design of exception-handling. To improve the quality of error-handling, we need to understand the problems and obstacles that developers face when designing and implementing exception-handling. In this paper, we present our research on understanding the viewpoint of developers--novices and experts--toward exception-handling. First, we conducted a study with novice developers in industry. The study results reveal that novices tend to ignore exceptions because of the complex nature of exception-handling. Then, we conducted a second study with experts in industry to understand their perspective on exception-handling. The study results show that, for experts, exception-handling is a crucial part in the development process. Experts also confirm the novices' approach of ignoring exception-handling and provide insights as to why novices do so. After analyzing the study data, we identified factor...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: TSE
• Authors: Hina Shah, Carsten Görg, Mary Jean Harrold
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Experts, Novices, Selection Process, TSE 2010