Dealing with Faults in Source Code: Abbreviated vs. Full-Word Identifier Names

We carried out a controlled experiment to investigate whether the use of abbreviated identifier names affects the ability of novice software developers to identify and fix faults in source code. The experiment was conducted with 49 students in Computer Science. The results of the statistical analyses indicate that there was not a significant difference to identify and to fix faults, when source code contains either abbreviated and full-word identifier names. In other words, it seems that abbreviated identifiers provide the same information as full-word identifiers on the solution domain and the implementation.