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Perceived language complexity in GitHub issue discussions and their effect on issue resolution

Authors:

Sasha Sirovica,

Vincent Hellendoorn,

Raul Aranovich,

Vladimir FilkovAuthors Info & Claims

ASE '17: Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

Pages 72 - 83

Published: 30 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Modern software development is increasingly collaborative. Open Source Software (OSS) are the bellwether; they support dynamic teams, with tools for code sharing, communication, and issue tracking. The success of an OSS project is reliant on team communication. E.g., in issue discussions, individuals rely on rhetoric to argue their position, but also maintain technical relevancy. Rhetoric and technical language are on opposite ends of a language complexity spectrum: the former is stylistically natural; the latter is terse and concise. Issue discussions embody this duality, as developers use rhetoric to describe technical issues. The style mix in any discussion can define group culture and affect performance, e.g., issue resolution times may be longer if discussion is imprecise.

Using GitHub, we studied issue discussions to understand whether project-specific language differences exist, and to what extent users conform to a language norm. We built project-specific and overall GitHub language models to study the effect of perceived language complexity on multiple responses. We find that experienced users conform to project-specific language norms, popular individuals use overall GitHub language rather than project-specific language, and conformance to project-specific language norms reduces issue resolution times. We also provide a tool to calculate project-specific perceived language complexity.

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Cited By

Casalnuovo CSagae KDevanbu P(2019)Studying the difference between natural and programming language corporaEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-018-9669-724:4(1823-1868)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-018-9669-7
Ye YHou SChen LLi XZhao LXu SWang JXiong Q(2018)ICSDProceedings of the 34th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference10.1145/3274694.3274742(542-552)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274694.3274742
Wessel Mde Souza BSteinmacher IWiese IPolato IChaves AGerosa M(2018)The Power of BotsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/32744512:CSCW(1-19)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274451

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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

ASE '17: Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

October 2017

1033 pages

ISBN:9781538626849

General Chair:
Grigore Rosu
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Massimiliano Di Penta
University of Sannio, Italy
,
Tien N. Nguyen
University of Texas at Dallas, USA

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IEEE Press

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Published: 30 October 2017

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Cited By

Casalnuovo CSagae KDevanbu P(2019)Studying the difference between natural and programming language corporaEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-018-9669-724:4(1823-1868)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-018-9669-7
Ye YHou SChen LLi XZhao LXu SWang JXiong Q(2018)ICSDProceedings of the 34th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference10.1145/3274694.3274742(542-552)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274694.3274742
Wessel Mde Souza BSteinmacher IWiese IPolato IChaves AGerosa M(2018)The Power of BotsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/32744512:CSCW(1-19)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274451

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