A study by Associate Professor Masateru Tsunoda of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Kinki University revealed that it takes time for software engineers to understand a specific program due to the deterioration of memory due to aging.Since the shortage of software development personnel has become a social problem, it is expected that the development of methods to compensate for the deterioration of memory will lead to the effective utilization of middle-aged and elderly workers.
According to Kinki University, Associate Professor Tsunoda and his colleagues have prepared a program in which the level of memory ability does not easily affect comprehension time and a program in which it easily affects comprehension time. The comprehension time of the program was measured by dividing into groups consisting of 22 people aged 24 years.
As a result, there was no difference in comprehension time between the young group and the elderly group in the program in which the level of memory ability did not affect the comprehension time.However, if the program had a tendency to affect the comprehension time depending on the level of memory ability, the comprehension time of the elderly group was long.Associate Professor Tsunoda and colleagues believe that older groups do not always have longer comprehension times, but longer when they require memory.
At software development sites, the percentage of program modification work called "maintenance" is high.Understanding the program is indispensable for this work, and the longer it takes to understand, the lower the work efficiency.Based on the results of this research, Associate Professor Tsunoda and his colleagues believe that if software that compensates for the deterioration of memory ability of the elderly can be developed, middle-aged and elderly workers can be effectively utilized.
Paper information:[IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems] Relationship between Code Reading Speed and Programmers' Age
