When APIs are Intentionally Bypassed: An Exploratory Study of API WorkaroundsTechnical
Application programming interfaces (APIs) have become ubiquitous in software development. However, external APIs are not guaranteed to contain every desirable feature, nor are they immune to software defects. Therefore, API users must sometimes be faced with situations where a current API does not satisfy all of their requirements but migrating to another API is costly. In these cases, due to the lack of communication channels between API developers and users, API users may intentionally bypass the existing API after inquiring into workarounds for their API problems with online communities. This mechanism takes the API developer out of the conversation, potentially leaving API bugs unreported and desirable API features undiscovered. In this paper, we explore API workaround inquiries from API users on Stack Overflow. We determine eight general reasons why API users inquire about API workarounds and eight general solutions to API workaround requests. Furthermore, using workaround implementations in Stack Overflow answers, we develop three API workaround implementation patterns. We identify instances of these patterns in real-life open source project and determine their value for API developers from their responses to feature requests based on the identified API workarounds.
Sat 11 JulDisplayed time zone: (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time change
16:05 - 17:05 | A29-Code Analysis and VerificationTechnical Papers / New Ideas and Emerging Results at Goguryeo Chair(s): Elena Sherman Boise State University | ||
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16:29 6mTalk | Predictive Constraint Solving and Analysis New Ideas and Emerging Results Alyas Almaawi The University of Texas at Austin, Nima Dini University of Texas at Austin, Cagdas Yelen The University of Texas at Austin, Milos Gligoric The University of Texas at Austin, Sasa Misailovic University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sarfraz Khurshid University of Texas at Austin, USA | ||
16:35 12mTalk | When APIs are Intentionally Bypassed: An Exploratory Study of API WorkaroundsTechnical Technical Papers Pre-print | ||
16:47 12mTalk | Demystify Official API Usage Directives with Crowdsourced API Misuse Scenarios, Erroneous Code Examples and PatchesTechnical Technical Papers Xiaoxue Ren Zhejiang University, Zhenchang Xing Australia National University, Jiamou Sun Australian National University, Xin Xia Monash University, JianLing Sun Zhejiang University | ||