Software Documentation Issues UnveiledTechnical TrackIndustry Program
(Good) Software documentation provides developers and users with a description of what a software system does, how it operates, and how it should be used. For example, technical documentation (e.g., an API reference guide) aids developers during evolution/maintenance activities, while a user manual explains how users are to interact with a system. Despite its intrinsic value, the creation and the maintenance of documentation is often neglected, negatively impacting its quality and usefulness, ultimately leading to a generally unfavourable take on documentation.
Previous studies investigating documentation issues have been based on surveying developers, which naturally leads to a somewhat biased view of problems affecting documentation. We present a large scale empirical study, where we mined, analyzed, and categorized 878 documentation-related artifacts stemming from four different sources, namely mailing lists, Stack Overflow discussions, issue repositories, and pull requests. The result is a detailed taxonomy of documentation issues from which we infer a series of actionable proposals both for researchers and practitioners.
Fri 31 May Times are displayed in time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
16:00 - 17:20: Software DocumentationPapers / Technical Track / Software Engineering in Practice / Journal-First Papers at Centre-Ville Chair(s): Bonita SharifUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA | |||
16:00 - 16:20 Talk | Web Feature Deprecation: A Case Study for ChromeSEIPIndustry Program Software Engineering in Practice Ariana MirianUniversity of California San Diego, Nikunj BhagatGoogle, Caitlin Sadowski, Adrienne Porter FeltGoogle, Stefan SavageUniversity of California San Diego, Geoffrey M. VoelkerUniversity of California San Diego | ||
16:20 - 16:40 Talk | Software Documentation Issues UnveiledTechnical TrackIndustry Program Technical Track Emad AghajaniSoftware Institute, USI - Lugano, Switzerland, Csaba NagyUniversità della Svizzera italiana (USI), Olga Lucero Vega-MarquezUniversidad de los Andes, Universidad de los Llanos, Mario Linares-VásquezSystems and Computing Engineering Department , Universidad de los Andes , Bogotá, Colombia , Laura MorenoColorado State University, Gabriele BavotaUniversità della Svizzera italiana (USI), Michele LanzaUniversita della Svizzera italiana (USI) Pre-print | ||
16:40 - 17:00 Talk | 9.6 Million Links in Source Code Comments: Purpose, Evolution, and Decay Technical Track Hideaki HataNara Institute of Science and Technology, Christoph TreudeThe University of Adelaide, Raula Gaikovina KulaNAIST, Takashi IshioNara Institute of Science and Technology DOI Pre-print Media Attached | ||
17:00 - 17:10 Talk | Categorizing the Content of GitHub README FilesJournal-First Journal-First Papers Gede Artha Azriadi PranaSingapore Management University, Christoph TreudeThe University of Adelaide, Ferdian Thung, Thushari AtapattuThe University of Adelaide, David LoSingapore Management University Link to publication DOI Pre-print | ||
17:10 - 17:20 Talk | Discussion Period Papers |