Example Overflow: Using Social Media for Code Recommendation

A talk I've given as part of the IBM Programming Languages and Software Engineering (PLSE) Seminar in 2012

Transcript

1. USING SOCIAL MEDIA
   FOR CODE RECOMMENDATION
   Alexey Zagalsky Ohad Barzilay Amiram Yehudai
   Tel Aviv University
   

   View Slide

2. Introduction
    Present myself
    Ongoing Research
   

   View Slide

3. Social Media Recommendations
   

   View Slide

4. Social Media
   “Architecture of Participation”
   Tim O’reilly
   

   View Slide

5. Social Media in SE
   Source
   Code
   Comments
   Tagging
   Micro-
   blogging
   Blogging
   Q&A
   Websites
   Wikies
   

   View Slide

6. Stack Overflow
   

   View Slide

7. Stack Overflow Stats (10.11.2012)
    Total Questions: 3.9M
    Total Answers: 7.6M
    Comments: 16.9M
    Questions per Min: 2.96
    Answers per Min: 4.29
    Views per Day: 2M
   

   View Slide

8. Related Work
    Over 92% of the questions on StackOverflow
   are answered, and for those 92% the median
   answer time is 11 minutes.
   Design lessons from the fastest q&a site in the west
   L.Mamykina, B.Manoim, M.Mittal, G.Hripcsak, B.Hartmann (2011)
    Linking StackOverflow data with API usage
   Crowd Documentation: Exploring the Coverage and the Dynamics of API Discussions on Stack
   Overflow
   Chris Parnin, Cristoph Teude, Lars Grammel and Margaret-Anne Storey (2012)
   

   View Slide

9. Sea Hawk Alberto Bacchelli, Luca Ponzanelli, Michele Lanza (2012)
   

   View Slide

10. Our Research
    Example Overflow
    

    View Slide

11. Research Question
     Q1: Is it possible to use SO for code
    recommendations ?
     Q2: Can we improve example usage by
    supporting actions (searching, comparing)?
    

    View Slide

12. Short Demo
    

    View Slide

13. Design Objectives
     Comparing multiple examples
     Display several code example at once
     Display only the code snippet itself
     Minimal context switching
     If required show additional context at the same
    place
     No need to go “forward” or “backwards”
    

    View Slide

14. Features
    

    View Slide

15. Example Overflow
    Populating the Repository
    

    View Slide

16. Example Overflow
    Searching
     Keyword Search based on TF-IDF
     Each example is represented as a Document
    with several parts.
     Sdoc
    = [ Wtitle
    Stitle
    + Wtag
    Stag
    + Wanswer
    Sanswer
    + Wquestion
    Squestion
    + Wcode
    Scode
    ] Smetadata
    

    View Slide

17. View Slide

18. Perliminary Evaluation
    Data Point Search Query
    Dynamic Dimension "jquery dynamic dimension"
    Hover "jquery hover div"
    Position "jquery position"
    Rounded Corners "jquery rounded corner"
    Draggable "jquery draggable"
    Droppable "jquery droppable"
    Autocomplete "jquery autocomplete from db"
    Accordion "jquery accordion"
    Date Picker "jquery datepicker"
    Image Scale "jquery image scale effect"
    

    View Slide

19. Rank of a suitable example at the
    returned search results
    Data Point
    Code Repository Tools
    Google Search Krugle Koders Stack Overflow Example Overflow
    Dynamic
    Dimension
    4 Not found Not found 1 3
    Hover 1 2 1 1 2
    Position 3 Not found Not found 4 1
    Rounded
    Corners
    2 Not found 3 3 1
    Draggable 1 Not found 3 2 1
    Dropable 1 Not found 3 1 2
    Autocomplete 1 Not found Not Found 1 1
    Accordion 1 Not found 12 3 1
    Date Picker 1 Not found 3 1 1
    Image Scale 2 Not found Not found Not found 3
    Avg. Rank 1.7 19.1 9.7778 3.8 1.6
    

    View Slide

20. Context Switching Comparison
    Data Point
    Code Repository Tools
    Google Search Krugle Koders Stack Overflow Example Overflow
    Dynamic
    Dimension
    7 - - 1 0
    Hover 1 3 1 1 0
    Position 5 - - 7 0
    Rounded
    Corners
    3 - 5 5 0
    Draggable 1 - 5 3 0
    Dropable 1 - 5 2 0
    Autocomplete 3 - - 1 0
    Accordion 1 - 23 6 0
    Date Picker 1 - 5 1 0
    Image Scale 3 - - - 0
    Avg. Mouse
    Clicks
    2.6 3 7.3333 3 0
    

    View Slide

21. Small Pilot at ICSE12
     The search is keyword dependent
     Sequential Search vs Iterative Search (refine)
     System performance matters
     Feedback loop
     Runnable code
    

    View Slide

22. Limitations
     EO not only enables Example Embedding
    EcoSystem but also enabled by it.
     It is unclear whether using SO can scale well
     Preliminary evaluation is limited and a
    thorough user study should be conducted.
    

    View Slide

23. Future Work
     User study:
     Quantative
     Example Overflow logs every action per user+session:
     Query used
     Results viewed
     Additional pages loaded
     Result chosen
     Additional context needed
     Qualitative
     User observations
    

    View Slide

24. Questions ?
    

    View Slide