Non-Linear Software Documentation with Interactive Code Examples

作     者：Nassif, Mathieu Robillard, Martin P. 

作者机构：McGill Univ Sch Comp Sci Montreal PQ Canada 

出 版 物：《ACM TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND METHODOLOGY》 (ACM Trans. Software Eng. Methodol.)

年 卷 期：2025年第34卷第2期

页      面：1-32页

核心收录：

学科分类：08[工学] 0835[工学-软件工程] 0812[工学-计算机科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 

基　　金：Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Fonds de Recherchedu Quebec - Nature et technologies 

主　　题：field study software documentation documentation format interactive documents code examples 

摘      要：Documentation enables sharing knowledge between the developers of a technology and its users. Creating quality documents, however, is challenging: Documents must satisfy the needs of a large audience without being overwhelming for individuals. We address this challenge with a new document format named Casdoc. Casdoc documents are interactive resources centered around code examples for programmers. Explanations of the code elements are presented as annotations that the readers reveal based on their needs. We evaluated Casdoc in a field study with over 300 participants who used 126 documents as part of a software design course. During the study, the majority of participants adopted Casdoc instead of a baseline format and used interactive annotations to reveal additional information about the code example. Although participants collectively viewed the majority of the documents content, they individually revealed a minority of the annotations they saw. We gathered insights into five aspects of Casdoc that can be applied to other formats and highlighted five lessons learned to improve navigability in online documents.