Version Control Systems (VCS) are an important source of information for developers. This calls for a principled understanding of developers’ information seeking in VCS—both for improving existing tools and for understanding requirements for new tools. Our prior work investigated empirically how and why developers seek information in VCS: in this paper, we complement and enrich our prior findings by reanalyzing the data via a theory’s lens. Using the lens of Information Foraging Theory (IFT), we present new insights not revealed by the prior empirical work.
First, while looking for specific information, participants’ foraging behaviors were consistent with other foraging situations in SE; therefore, prior research on IFT-based SE tool design can be leveraged for VCS. Second, in change awareness foraging, participants consumed similar diets, but in subtly different ways than in other situations; this calls for further investigations into change awareness foraging. Third, while committing changes, participants attempted to enable future foragers, but the competing needs of different foraging situations led to tensions that participants failed to balance: this opens up a new avenue for research at the intersection of IFT and SE, namely, creating forageable information. Finally, the results of using an IFT lens on these data provides some evidence as to IFT’s scoping and utility for the version control domain.
Fri 10 Jul Times are displayed in time zone: (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time change
07:00 - 08:00 | I21-Version Control and ProgrammingPaper Presentations / Technical Papers / Journal First / Software Engineering in Practice at Silla Chair(s): Sunghun KimHong Kong University of Science and Technology | ||
07:00 12mTalk | Towards Understanding and Fixing Upstream Merge Induced Conflicts in Divergent Forks: An industrial Case StudySEIP Software Engineering in Practice Chungha SungUniversity of Southern California, Shuvendu LahiriMicrosoft Research, Mike KaufmanMicrosoft Corporation, Pallavi ChoudhuryMicrosoft Corporation, Chao WangUSC | ||
07:12 8mTalk | Version Control Systems: An Information Foraging PerspectiveJ1 Journal First Sruti Srinivasa RagavanMicrosoft Research; School of EECS, Oregon State University, Mihai CodobanMicrosoft, David PiorkowskiIBM Research AI, Danny DigUniversity of Colorado, Boulder, Margaret BurnettOregon State University | ||
07:20 8mTalk | How different are different diff algorithms in Git?J1 Journal First Yusuf Sulistyo NugrohoNara Institute of Science and Technology, Hideaki HataNara Institute of Science and Technology, Kenichi MatsumotoNara Institute of Science and Technology DOI Media Attached | ||
07:28 8mTalk | Characterizing the Usage, Evolution and Impact of Java Annotations in PracticeJ1 Journal First Zhongxing YuKTH Royal Institute of Technology, Chenggang BaiBeihang University, Lionel Seinturier, Martin MonperrusKTH Royal Institute of Technology | ||
07:36 8mTalk | Why Reinventing the Wheels? An Empirical Study on Library Reuse and Re-implementationJ1 Journal First Bowen XuSingapore Management University, Le AnPolytechnique Montreal, Ferdian ThungSingapore Management University, Foutse KhomhPolytechnique Montréal, David LoSingapore Management University | ||
07:44 12mTalk | HeteroRefactor: Refactoring for Heterogeneous Computing with FPGATechnical Technical Papers Aishwarya SivaramanUniversity of California, Los Angeles, Jason LauUniversity of California, Los Angeles, Qian ZhangUniversity of California, Los Angeles, Muhammad Ali GulzarUniversity of California, Los Angeles, Jason CongUCLA, Miryung KimUniversity of California, Los Angeles DOI |