A controlled experiment for evaluating the comprehensibility of UML Action Languages

Action Languages represent an emerging paradigm where modeling abstractions are embedded in code to bridge the gap with visual models, such as UML models. The paradigm is gaining momentum, evident by the growing number of tools and standards that support this paradigm. In this paper, we report on a controlled experiment to assess the comprehensibility of those languages and compare it to that of object-oriented (OO) programming languages. We further report on the impact of also having access to the UML notation on the comprehensibility of those languages. Results suggest that action languages are significantly more comprehensible than traditional OO languages. Furthermore, there was not a significant improvement in comprehensibility when the UML notation was used along with both OO and action language code. We conclude that action languages are a promising alternative to traditional OO languages for specifying details, yet seem to be as comprehensible as high-level visual models.