Information delivery in support of learning reusable software components on demand

Abstract

An inherent dilemma exists in the design of highfunctionality applications (such as repositories of reusable software components). In order to be useful, highfunctionality applications have to provide a large number of features, creating huge learning problems for users. We address this dilemma by developing intelligent interfaces that support learning on demand by enabling users to learn new features when they are needed during work. We support learning on demand with information delivery by identifying learning opportunities of which users might not be aware. The challenging issues in implementing information delivery are discussed and techniques to address them are illustrated with the CodeBroker system. CodeBroker supports Java programmers in learning reusable software components in the context of their normal development environments and practice by proactively delivering task-relevant and personalized information. Evaluations of the system have shown its effectiveness in supporting learning on demand.

Hipikat: recommending pertinent software development artifacts

“…For example, the CodeBroker [18] reuse recommender keeps track of components in a reuse repository that a developer has often accessed in the past, assumes that these components are well-known, and thus does not include the components in its recommendations. Although collaborative filtering would, by definition, have to be done in the Hipikat server, user modeling could be done partly or even entirely by the client.…”

“…Similar to Hipikat, Ye and Fischer's CodeBroker [18] uses information retrieval methods to determine software artifacts to suggest in the context of a developer's current task. However, CodeBroker is tailored to helping a developer on small-scale reuse tasks: The tool monitors a developer's use of a text editor watching for the method declarations and the descriptions of those methods in comments, the tool uses that information as a query to a library to find potential components that could be reused instead of a new component being created.…”

A Novel Approach to Detect Unintentional Re-implementations

“…Code recommenders, proposed by [11], [14], [15], [21], [32], address re-implementations by recommending code snippets or applicable library methods depending on the current development context. Similar to code recommenders, enhanced code completion [4], [27] aims to ease discovery of existing functionality to the developer.…”

A socio-technical framework for supporting programmers

“…The information delivery approach [34] analyzes the context in which the programmer is currently working, and proactively prompts programmers to taskrelevant information whose existence the programmer might not know. The information access mechanism provides a query interface that allows programmers to locate the most relevant information when they know what they are looking for.…”