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Using and Asking: APIs Used in the Android Market and Asked about in StackOverflow

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Social Informatics (SocInfo 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8238))

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Abstract

Programming is knowledge intensive. While it is well understood that programmers spend lots of time looking for information, with few exceptions, there is a significant lack of data on what information they seek, and why. Modern platforms, like Android, comprise complex APIs that often perplex programmers. We ask: which elements are confusing, and why? Increasingly, when programmers need answers, they turn to StackOverflow. This provides a novel opportunity. There are a vast number of applications for Android devices, which can be readily analyzed, and many traces of interactions on StackOverflow. These provide a complementary perspective on using and asking, and allow the two phenomena to be studied together. How does the market demand for the USE of an API drive the market for knowledge about it? Here, we analyze data from Android applications and StackOverflow together, to find out what it is that programmers want to know and why.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. of California Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    David Kavaler, Daryl Posnett, Clint Gibler, Hao Chen, Premkumar Devanbu & Vladimir Filkov

Authors
  1. David Kavaler
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  2. Daryl Posnett
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  3. Clint Gibler
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  4. Hao Chen
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  5. Premkumar Devanbu
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  6. Vladimir Filkov
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, 606-8501, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan

    Adam Jatowt

  2. School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, 178902, Singapore

    Ee-Peng Lim  & Bing Tian Dai  & 

  3. Department of Information and Library Science, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, 1320 E. 10th St., LI 011, 47405, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Ying Ding

  4. Department of Integrated Psychological Sciences, Kwansei Gakuin University, 1-1-155 Uegahara, 662-8501, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan

    Asako Miura

  5. Faculty of Library, Information and Media Science, University of Tsukuba, 1-2 Kasuga, 305-8550, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, Japan

    Taro Tezuka

  6. Department of Computer Science, University of Caen Basse-Normandie, Campus Côte de Nacre, F-14032, Caen Cedex, France

    Gaël Dias

  7. Department of Social Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics,, Kyoto University, 606-8501, Kyoto, Japan

    Katsumi Tanaka

  8. Department of Communication, University of California, 93106, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Andrew Flanagin

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© 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Kavaler, D., Posnett, D., Gibler, C., Chen, H., Devanbu, P., Filkov, V. (2013). Using and Asking: APIs Used in the Android Market and Asked about in StackOverflow. In: Jatowt, A., et al. Social Informatics. SocInfo 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8238. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03260-3_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03260-3_35

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-03259-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-03260-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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