Code duplication on stack overflow

Despite the unarguable importance of Stack Overflow (SO) for the daily work of many software developers and despite existing knowledge about the impact of code duplication on software maintainability, the prevalence and implications of code clones on SO have not yet received the attention they deser...

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Main Authors: BALTES, Sebastian, TREUDE, Christoph
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8896
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9899/viewcontent/icse20b.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
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spelling sg-smu-ink.sis_research-98992024-06-27T08:59:48Z Code duplication on stack overflow BALTES, Sebastian TREUDE, Christoph Despite the unarguable importance of Stack Overflow (SO) for the daily work of many software developers and despite existing knowledge about the impact of code duplication on software maintainability, the prevalence and implications of code clones on SO have not yet received the attention they deserve. In this paper, we motivate why studies on code duplication within SO are needed and how existing studies on code reuse differ from this new research direction. We present similarities and differences between code clones in general and code clones on SO and point to open questions that need to be addressed to be able to make data-informed decisions about how to properly handle clones on this important platform. We present results from a first preliminary investigation, indicating that clones on SO are common and diverse. We further point to specific challenges, including incentives for users to clone successful answers and difficulties with bulk edits on the platform, and conclude with possible directions for future work. 2020-05-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8896 info:doi/10.1145/3377816.3381744 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9899/viewcontent/icse20b.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 code duplication code clones software maintenance software evolution software licenses stack overflow Software Engineering
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic code duplication
code clones
software maintenance
software evolution
software licenses
stack overflow
Software Engineering
spellingShingle code duplication
code clones
software maintenance
software evolution
software licenses
stack overflow
Software Engineering
BALTES, Sebastian
TREUDE, Christoph
Code duplication on stack overflow
description Despite the unarguable importance of Stack Overflow (SO) for the daily work of many software developers and despite existing knowledge about the impact of code duplication on software maintainability, the prevalence and implications of code clones on SO have not yet received the attention they deserve. In this paper, we motivate why studies on code duplication within SO are needed and how existing studies on code reuse differ from this new research direction. We present similarities and differences between code clones in general and code clones on SO and point to open questions that need to be addressed to be able to make data-informed decisions about how to properly handle clones on this important platform. We present results from a first preliminary investigation, indicating that clones on SO are common and diverse. We further point to specific challenges, including incentives for users to clone successful answers and difficulties with bulk edits on the platform, and conclude with possible directions for future work.
format text
author BALTES, Sebastian
TREUDE, Christoph
author_facet BALTES, Sebastian
TREUDE, Christoph
author_sort BALTES, Sebastian
title Code duplication on stack overflow
title_short Code duplication on stack overflow
title_full Code duplication on stack overflow
title_fullStr Code duplication on stack overflow
title_full_unstemmed Code duplication on stack overflow
title_sort code duplication on stack overflow
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2020
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8896
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9899/viewcontent/icse20b.pdf
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