This paper investigates the needs of computer science educators and experimental researchers for a measure of programmer performance. Operational and comprehensional problem solving is differentiated and their manifestations in computer science are presented. Measures that have been used by experimental researchers to evaluate programmer performance are described. The lack of adequate measures of comprehensional problem solving leads to the definition of the concept of Program Understanding. A measure of Program Understanding is discussed and its uses in education, experimental research, and industry are explored.

Structure charts have been presented via seminars to groups of computing professionals. Some of these software designers have adopted structure charts as their standard design tool. These practitioners are providing impressive anecdotal evidence that structure charts have significant practical value and are not merely of academic interest.

White and Cohen have proposed the domain testing method, which attempts to uncover errors in a path domain by selecting test data on and near the boundary of the path domain. The goal of domain testing is to demonstrate that the boundary is correct within an acceptable error bound. Domain testing is intuitively appealing in that it provides a method for satisfying the often suggested guideline that boundary conditions should be tested.