Research

Research Statement

Currently, source code is treated like plain text. I think this is wrong. Treating it like text poses great problems when it comes to understanding it. A developer first needs to understand the code, before they can start making changes. My goal is to change this.

My work focused on improving parallel software development. By looking at the merging practices, I made strides in understanding why merge conflict are a problem from both a code perpective, and from the developers' perpective. I also conducted research in software testing, especially mutation testing.

Publications

• Using Relative Lines of Code to Guide Automated Test Generation for Python
  Josie Holmes, Iftekhar Ahmed, Caius Brindescu, Rahul Gopinath, He Zhang, Alex Groce
  ACM Transactions on Software Engineering (TOSEM), Volume 29, Issue 4.
• Lifting the Curtain on Merge Conflict Resolution: A Sensemaking Perspective
  Caius Brindescu, Yenifer Ramirez, Anita Sarma, Carlos Jensen
  ICSME 2020: 36th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution
• Planning for untangling: Predicting the Difficulty of Merge Conflicts
  Caius Brindescu, Iftekhar Ahmed, Rafael Leano, Anita Sarma
  ICSE 2020, The 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering
• An Empirical Investigation into Merge Conflicts and Their Effect on Software Quality
  Caius Brindescu, Iftekhar Ahmed, Carlos Jensen, Anita Sarma
  Empirical Software Engineering, Volume 25, Issue 1
• The Life-Cycle of Merge Conflicts: Processes, Barriers, and Strategies
  Nicholas Nelson, Caius Brindescu, Shane McKee, Anita Sarma, Danny Dig
  Empirical Software Engineering, Volume 24, Issue 4.
• An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Code Smells and Merge Conflicts
  Iftekhar Ahmed, Caius Brindescu, Umme Ayda Mannan, Carlos Jensen, Anita Sarma
  ESEM 2017: 11th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
  (Preprint) (Slides) (Companion Website)
• Can Testedness be Effectively Measured?
  Iftekhar Ahmed, Rahul Gopinath, Caius Brindescu, Alex Groce, Carlos Jensen
  FSE 2016: The 24th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
  (Preprint)
• How Do Centralized and Distributed Version Control Systems Impact Software Changes?
  Caius Brindescu, Mihai Codoban, Sergii Shmarkatiuk, Danny Dig
  ICSE 2014: 36th International Conference on Software Engineering
  (Preprint) (Tech Report) (Slides)