A field study of API learning obstacles
Large APIs can be hard to learn, and this can lead to decreased programmer productivity. But what makes APIs hard to learn? We conducted a mixed approach, multi-phased study of the obstacles faced by Microsoft developers learning a wide variety of new APIs. The study involved a combination of survey...
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| Published in | Empirical software engineering : an international journal Vol. 16; no. 6; pp. 703 - 732 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors | , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
Boston
Springer US
01.12.2011
Springer Nature B.V |
| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Abstract | Large APIs can be hard to learn, and this can lead to decreased programmer productivity. But what makes APIs hard to learn? We conducted a mixed approach, multi-phased study of the obstacles faced by Microsoft developers learning a wide variety of new APIs. The study involved a combination of surveys and in-person interviews, and collected the opinions and experiences of over 440 professional developers. We found that some of the most severe obstacles faced by developers learning new APIs pertained to the documentation and other learning resources. We report on the obstacles developers face when learning new APIs, with a special focus on obstacles related to API documentation. Our qualitative analysis elicited five important factors to consider when designing API documentation: documentation of intent; code examples; matching APIs with scenarios; penetrability of the API; and format and presentation. We analyzed how these factors can be interpreted to prioritize API documentation development efforts |
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| AbstractList | Large APIs can be hard to learn, and this can lead to decreased programmer productivity. But what makes APIs hard to learn? We conducted a mixed approach, multi-phased study of the obstacles faced by Microsoft developers learning a wide variety of new APIs. The study involved a combination of surveys and in-person interviews, and collected the opinions and experiences of over 440 professional developers. We found that some of the most severe obstacles faced by developers learning new APIs pertained to the documentation and other learning resources. We report on the obstacles developers face when learning new APIs, with a special focus on obstacles related to API documentation. Our qualitative analysis elicited five important factors to consider when designing API documentation: documentation of intent; code examples; matching APIs with scenarios; penetrability of the API; and format and presentation. We analyzed how these factors can be interpreted to prioritize API documentation development efforts Large APIs can be hard to learn, and this can lead to decreased programmer productivity. But what makes APIs hard to learn? We conducted a mixed approach, multi-phased study of the obstacles faced by Microsoft developers learning a wide variety of new APIs. The study involved a combination of surveys and in-person interviews, and collected the opinions and experiences of over 440 professional developers. We found that some of the most severe obstacles faced by developers learning new APIs pertained to the documentation and other learning resources. We report on the obstacles developers face when learning new APIs, with a special focus on obstacles related to API documentation. Our qualitative analysis elicited five important factors to consider when designing API documentation: documentation of intent; code examples; matching APIs with scenarios; penetrability of the API; and format and presentation. We analyzed how these factors can be interpreted to prioritize API documentation development efforts[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] |
| Author | DeLine, Robert Robillard, Martin P. |
| Author_xml | – sequence: 1 givenname: Martin P. surname: Robillard fullname: Robillard, Martin P. email: martin@cs.mcgill.ca organization: School of Computer Science, McGill University – sequence: 2 givenname: Robert surname: DeLine fullname: DeLine, Robert organization: Microsoft Research, One Microsoft Way |
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| SubjectTerms | API Compilers Computer Science Developers Documentation Interpreters Learning Obstacles Productivity Programmers Programming Languages Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems Vulnerability |
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| Title | A field study of API learning obstacles |
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