1 research outputs found
Identifying reusable knowledge in developer instant messaging communication.
Context and background: Software engineering is a complex and knowledge-intensive
activity. Required knowledge (e.g., about technologies, frameworks, and design decisions)
changes fast and the knowledge needs of those who design, code, test and maintain
software constantly evolve. On the other hand, software developers use a wide range of
processes, practices and tools where developers explicitly and implicitly “produce” and
capture different types of knowledge.
Problem: Software developers use instant messaging tools (e.g., Slack, Microsoft
Teams and Gitter) to discuss development-related problems, share experiences and to
collaborate in projects. This communication takes place in chat rooms that accumulate
potentially relevant knowledge to be reused by other developers. Therefore, in this
research we analyze whether there is reusable knowledge in developer instant messaging
communication by exploring (a) which instant messaging platforms can be a source
of reusable knowledge, and (b) software engineering themes that represent the main
discussions of developers in instant messaging communication. We also analyze how
this reusable knowledge can be identified with the use of topic modeling (a natural
language processing technique to discover abstract topics in text) by (c) surveying the
literature on how topic modeling has been applied in software engineering research, and
(d) evaluating how topic models perform with developer instant messages.
Method: First, we conducted a Field Study through an exploratory case study and a
reflexive thematic analysis to check whether there is reusable knowledge in developer
instant messaging communication, and if so, what this knowledge (main themes discussed)
is. Then, we conducted a Sample Study to explore how reusable knowledge in
developer instant messaging communication can we identified. In this study, we applied
a literature survey and software repository mining (i.e. short text topic modeling).
Findings and contributions: We (a) developed a comparison framework for instant
messaging tools, (b) identified a map of the main themes discussed in chat rooms of an
instant messaging tool (Gitter, a platform used by software developers), (c) provided a
comprehensive literature review that offers insights and references on the use of topic
modeling in software engineering, and (d) provided an evaluation of the performance of
topic models applied to developer instant messages based on topic coherence metrics
and human judgment for topic quality