Understanding stack overflow code fragments

Code fragments posted in answers on Q&A forums can form an important source of developer knowledge. However, effective reuse of code fragments found online often requires information other than the code fragment alone. We report on the results of a survey-based study to investigate to what exten...

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Main Authors: TREUDE, Christoph, ROBILLARD, Martin P.
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8876
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9879/viewcontent/icsme17a.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
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spelling sg-smu-ink.sis_research-98792024-06-13T08:56:28Z Understanding stack overflow code fragments TREUDE, Christoph ROBILLARD, Martin P. Code fragments posted in answers on Q&A forums can form an important source of developer knowledge. However, effective reuse of code fragments found online often requires information other than the code fragment alone. We report on the results of a survey-based study to investigate to what extent developers perceive Stack Overflow code fragments to be self-explanatory. As part of the study, we also investigated the types of information missing from fragments that were not self-explanatory. We find that less than half of the Stack Overflow code fragments in our sample are considered to be self-explanatory by the 321 participants who answered our survey, and that the main issues that negatively affect code fragment understandability include incomplete fragments, code quality, missing rationale, code organization, clutter, naming issues, and missing domain information. This study is a step towards understanding developers' information needs as they relate to code fragments, and how these needs can be addressed. 2017-09-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8876 info:doi/10.1109/ICSME.2017.24 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9879/viewcontent/icsme17a.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 Java Organizations Programming Clutter Software Data collection Databases and Information Systems Software Engineering
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Java
Organizations
Programming
Clutter
Software
Data collection
Databases and Information Systems
Software Engineering
spellingShingle Java
Organizations
Programming
Clutter
Software
Data collection
Databases and Information Systems
Software Engineering
TREUDE, Christoph
ROBILLARD, Martin P.
Understanding stack overflow code fragments
description Code fragments posted in answers on Q&A forums can form an important source of developer knowledge. However, effective reuse of code fragments found online often requires information other than the code fragment alone. We report on the results of a survey-based study to investigate to what extent developers perceive Stack Overflow code fragments to be self-explanatory. As part of the study, we also investigated the types of information missing from fragments that were not self-explanatory. We find that less than half of the Stack Overflow code fragments in our sample are considered to be self-explanatory by the 321 participants who answered our survey, and that the main issues that negatively affect code fragment understandability include incomplete fragments, code quality, missing rationale, code organization, clutter, naming issues, and missing domain information. This study is a step towards understanding developers' information needs as they relate to code fragments, and how these needs can be addressed.
format text
author TREUDE, Christoph
ROBILLARD, Martin P.
author_facet TREUDE, Christoph
ROBILLARD, Martin P.
author_sort TREUDE, Christoph
title Understanding stack overflow code fragments
title_short Understanding stack overflow code fragments
title_full Understanding stack overflow code fragments
title_fullStr Understanding stack overflow code fragments
title_full_unstemmed Understanding stack overflow code fragments
title_sort understanding stack overflow code fragments
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2017
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8876
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9879/viewcontent/icsme17a.pdf
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