Mining Questions Asked by Web Developers

1. Mining Ques$ons Asked by Web Developers Kar$k Bajaj, Karthik Pa.abiraman, Ali Mesbah Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Bri$sh Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada {kbajaj, karthikp, amesbah}@ece.ubc.ca MSR 2014

2. Problem Statement n Web applica$ons are becoming popular over $me n [Jazayeri et al., FOSE 2007] n Complex integra$on of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML n JavaScript code oen experiences errors n [Ocariza et al., ISSRE 2011] MSR 2014 2

3. Exis$ng Work n Sta$c Checkers n Dynamic Checkers n Console Messages n Bug Reports MSR 2014 3

4. Exis$ng Work n Sta$c Checkers n Dynamic Checkers n Console Messages n Bug Reports No a.empt to understand developer’s misconcep$on MSR 2014 4

5. Goal n Understand the common challenges and/or misconcep$ons among web developers MSR 2014 5

6. Background n Stack Overflow n QA website for programmers n Started in 2008 n 4,125,638 ques$ons asked from Jan’09 to Dec’12 n 500,000+ ques$ons related to web development n Ques$ons directly asked/answered by developers n Followed by discussion in comments MSR 2014 6

7. Background n Stack Overflow n QA website for programmers n Started in 2008 n 4,125,638 ques$ons asked from Jan’09 to Dec’12 n 500,000+ ques$ons related to web development n Ques$ons directly asked/answered by developers n Followed by discussion in comments StackOverflow provides sufficient data for analysis MSR 2014 7

8. Straw man Approach n Categoriza$on based on tags a.ached to each ques$on n Can provide an overview of major topics of discussion MSR 2014 8

9. Straw man Approach n Categoriza$on based on tags a.ached to each ques$on n Can provide an overview of major topics of discussion How appropriate are tags? MSR 2014 9

10. Tags n What is known to developer while tagging? n Plamorm n Target Device n What is unknown to developer? n Possible ways to solve the problem n Correct topic of discussion MSR 2014 10

11. Example MSR 2014 11

12. Natural Language Analysis n Analyzing the text provided in the ques$ons and answers provided by developers MSR 2014 12 Data Collec$on Data Cleaning Data Processing

13. Datasets MSR 2014 13

14. RQ1: Categoriza$on of topics of discussion

15. ! #$

18. ('

20. MSR 2014 14

21. RQ1: Categoriza$on of topics of discussion

22. Cross Browser related discussions have gained maximum

23. ! #$

26. ('

28. a.en$on from web developers. MSR 2014 15

29. RQ2: Hot topics of discussion Technology Hot Topics JavaScript Document Structure, File Handling, Cross-‐Browser, jQuery, DOM HTML5 Media, Browser Support, HTML5 Elements, Canvas API, Offline Web CSS CSS3, Fonts, JavaScript, Box-‐Model, Layout MSR 2014 16

30. RQ2: Hot topics of discussion Technology Hot Topics JavaScript Document Structure, File Handling, Cross-‐Browser, jQuery, DOM View counts provide a hint towards recurrent issues faced by HTML5 Media, Browser Support, HTML5 Elements, Canvas API, Offline Web web developers. CSS CSS3, Fonts, JavaScript, Box-‐Model, Layout MSR 2014 17

31. RQ3: Temporal trends over $me

32. MSR 2014 18

33. RQ3: Temporal trends over $me Cross-‐browser compa$bility issues have seen a sharp decline

34. in the recent past. Further, CSS3 and HTML5 discussions are gaining popularity. MSR 2014 19

35. RQ4: Prevalence of web in mobile development

36. MSR 2014 20

37. RQ4: Prevalence of web in mobile development

38. Discussions related to Mobile development are seeing an

39. increasing share of web technologies. MSR 2014 21

40. Popularity n Ques$ons that gained maximum a.en$on from the community n Post Score n Up votes n Down votes MSR 2014 22

41. Popularity n Ques$ons that gained maximum a.en$on from the community n Post Score n Up votes n Down votes Is post score accurate representa$on of user par$cipa$on? MSR 2014 23

42. StackOverflow Post Score n Missing details n How many users up voted or down voted the ques$on? n How many users tried to answer the ques$on? n Is there an accepted answer for this ques$on? n How many users are following the ques$on? n How many users are par$cipa$ng in the discussion? MSR 2014 24

43. StackOverflow Post Score n Missing details n How many users up voted or down voted the ques$on? n How many users tried to answer the ques$on? n Is there an accepted answer for this ques$on? n How many users are following the ques$on? n How many users are par$cipa$ng in the discussion? MSR 2014 We devised a new metric to rank Stack Overflow ques$ons based on these factors. 25

44. RQ5: Technical challenges MSR 2014 26

45. RQ5: Technical challenges Programmers get confused about new features, sugges$ng that the available API resources for these features is far from ideal. Maintaining web code, such as CSS, is complex without proper tool support. MSR 2014 27

46. Implica$ons n Finding 1, 3 (CategorizaFon and temporal trends) n Developers can shi their focus away from cross browser issues. n Finding 4 (Prevalence of mobile applicaFons) n Can guide tool developers to build be.er mobile development tools. n Finding 5 (Technical Challenges) n Can guide standardiza0on communi0es to focus on areas that need improvement. MSR 2014 28

47. Thank You!! Contribu$ons 1. Categorized web related discussions. 2. Iden$fied temporal trends. 3. Devised a metric to rank StackOverflow ques$ons. Analyzed Data: h.p://www.ece.ubc.ca/~kbajaj/so/data.zip MSR 2014 29

Mining Questions Asked by Web Developers

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