GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption

Discussions is a new feature of GitHub for asking questions or discussing topics outside of specific Issues or Pull Requests. Before being available to all projects in December 2020, it had been tested on selected open source software projects. To understand how developers use this novel feature, ho...

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Main Authors: HATA, Hideaki, NOVIELLI, Nicole, BALTES, Sebastian, KULA, Raula, TREUDE, Christoph
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Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8788
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9791/viewcontent/discussions.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
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spelling sg-smu-ink.sis_research-97912024-05-30T08:52:48Z GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption HATA, Hideaki NOVIELLI, Nicole BALTES, Sebastian KULA, Raula TREUDE, Christoph Discussions is a new feature of GitHub for asking questions or discussing topics outside of specific Issues or Pull Requests. Before being available to all projects in December 2020, it had been tested on selected open source software projects. To understand how developers use this novel feature, how they perceive it, and how it impacts the development processes, we conducted a mixed-methods study based on early adopters of GitHub discussions from January until July 2020. We found that: (1) errors, unexpected behavior, and code reviews are prevalent discussion categories; (2) there is a positive relationship between project member involvement and discussion frequency; (3) developers consider GitHub Discussions useful but face the problem of topic duplication between Discussions and Issues; (4) Discussions play a crucial role in advancing the development of projects; and (5) positive sentiment in Discussions is more frequent than in Stack Overflow posts. Our findings are a first step towards data-informed guidance for using GitHub Discussions, opening up avenues for future work on this novel communication channel. 2022-01-01T08:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8788 info:doi/10.1007/s10664-021-10058-6 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9791/viewcontent/discussions.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University GitHub Discussions communications sentiment empirical study exploratory study Software Engineering
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic GitHub Discussions
communications
sentiment
empirical study
exploratory study
Software Engineering
spellingShingle GitHub Discussions
communications
sentiment
empirical study
exploratory study
Software Engineering
HATA, Hideaki
NOVIELLI, Nicole
BALTES, Sebastian
KULA, Raula
TREUDE, Christoph
GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
description Discussions is a new feature of GitHub for asking questions or discussing topics outside of specific Issues or Pull Requests. Before being available to all projects in December 2020, it had been tested on selected open source software projects. To understand how developers use this novel feature, how they perceive it, and how it impacts the development processes, we conducted a mixed-methods study based on early adopters of GitHub discussions from January until July 2020. We found that: (1) errors, unexpected behavior, and code reviews are prevalent discussion categories; (2) there is a positive relationship between project member involvement and discussion frequency; (3) developers consider GitHub Discussions useful but face the problem of topic duplication between Discussions and Issues; (4) Discussions play a crucial role in advancing the development of projects; and (5) positive sentiment in Discussions is more frequent than in Stack Overflow posts. Our findings are a first step towards data-informed guidance for using GitHub Discussions, opening up avenues for future work on this novel communication channel.
format text
author HATA, Hideaki
NOVIELLI, Nicole
BALTES, Sebastian
KULA, Raula
TREUDE, Christoph
author_facet HATA, Hideaki
NOVIELLI, Nicole
BALTES, Sebastian
KULA, Raula
TREUDE, Christoph
author_sort HATA, Hideaki
title GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
title_short GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
title_full GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
title_fullStr GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
title_full_unstemmed GitHub Discussions: An exploratory study of early adoption
title_sort github discussions: an exploratory study of early adoption
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2022
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8788
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9791/viewcontent/discussions.pdf
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