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Full-Text Articles in Computer Sciences
Large Language Models For Qualitative Research In Software Engineering: Exploring Opportunities And Challenges, Muneera Bano, Rashina Hoda, Didar Zowghi, Christoph Treude
Large Language Models For Qualitative Research In Software Engineering: Exploring Opportunities And Challenges, Muneera Bano, Rashina Hoda, Didar Zowghi, Christoph Treude
Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems
The recent surge in the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT into qualitative research in software engineering, much like in other professional domains, demands a closer inspection. This vision paper seeks to explore the opportunities of using LLMs in qualitative research to address many of its legacy challenges as well as potential new concerns and pitfalls arising from the use of LLMs. We share our vision for the evolving role of the qualitative researcher in the age of LLMs and contemplate how they may utilize LLMs at various stages of their research experience.
Fixing Your Own Smells: Adding A Mistake-Based Familiarization Step When Teaching Code Refactoring, Ivan Wei Han Tan, Christopher M. Poskitt
Fixing Your Own Smells: Adding A Mistake-Based Familiarization Step When Teaching Code Refactoring, Ivan Wei Han Tan, Christopher M. Poskitt
Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems
Programming problems can be solved in a multitude of functionally correct ways, but the quality of these solutions (e.g. readability, maintainability) can vary immensely. When code quality is poor, symptoms emerge in the form of 'code smells', which are specific negative characteristics (e.g. duplicate code) that can be resolved by applying refactoring patterns. Many undergraduate computing curricula train students on this software engineering practice, often doing so via exercises on unfamiliar instructor-provided code. Our observation, however, is that this makes it harder for novices to internalise refactoring as part of their own development practices. In this paper, we propose a …
She Elicits Requirements And He Tests: Software Engineering Gender Bias In Large Language Models, Christoph Treude, Hideaki Hata
She Elicits Requirements And He Tests: Software Engineering Gender Bias In Large Language Models, Christoph Treude, Hideaki Hata
Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems
Implicit gender bias in software development is a well-documented issue, such as the association of technical roles with men. To address this bias, it is important to understand it in more detail. This study uses data mining techniques to investigate the extent to which 56 tasks related to software development, such as assigning GitHub issues and testing, are affected by implicit gender bias embedded in large language models. We systematically translated each task from English into a genderless language and back, and investigated the pronouns associated with each task. Based on translating each task 100 times in different permutations, we …
A Semantics Comparison Workbench For A Concurrent, Asynchronous, Distributed Programming Language, Claudio Corrodi, Alexander Heußner, Christopher M. Poskitt
A Semantics Comparison Workbench For A Concurrent, Asynchronous, Distributed Programming Language, Claudio Corrodi, Alexander Heußner, Christopher M. Poskitt
Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems
A number of high-level languages and libraries have been proposed that offer novel and simple to use abstractions for concurrent, asynchronous, and distributed programming. The execution models that realise them, however, often change over time---whether to improve performance, or to extend them to new language features---potentially affecting behavioural and safety properties of existing programs. This is exemplified by SCOOP, a message-passing approach to concurrent object-oriented programming that has seen multiple changes proposed and implemented, with demonstrable consequences for an idiomatic usage of its core abstraction. We propose a semantics comparison workbench for SCOOP with fully and semi-automatic tools for analysing …
Code Coverage And Postrelease Defects: A Large-Scale Study On Open Source Projects, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, David Lo, Julia Lawall, Nachiappan Nagappan
Code Coverage And Postrelease Defects: A Large-Scale Study On Open Source Projects, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, David Lo, Julia Lawall, Nachiappan Nagappan
Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems
Testing is a pivotal activity in ensuring the quality of software. Code coverage is a common metric used as a yardstick to measure the efficacy and adequacy of testing. However, does higher coverage actually lead to a decline in postrelease bugs? Do files that have higher test coverage actually have fewer bug reports? The direct relationship between code coverage and actual bug reports has not yet been analyzed via a comprehensive empirical study on real bugs. Past studies only involve a few software systems or artificially injected bugs (mutants). In this empirical study, we examine these questions in the context …