research-article

What Do Developers Use the Crowd For? A Study Using Stack Overflow

Authors:

Rabe Abdalkareem,

Emad Shihab,

Juergen RillingAuthors Info & Claims

IEEE Software, Volume 34, Issue 2

Pages 53 - 60

https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2017.31

Published: 01 March 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Stack Overflow relies on the crowd to construct quality developer-related knowledge. To determine what developers use this knowledge for, researchers analyzed 1,414 Stack Overflow-related code commits. The developers used this knowledge to support development tasks and collect user feedback. The researchers also studied Stack Overflow posts' helpfulness and timeliness. The crowd was the most helpful on topics such as development tools and programming languages. The questions that took the longest to resolve were related to Web frameworks. The study findings can help developers better understand how to effectively use Stack Overflow, can help Stack Overflow designers improve their platform, and can help the research community understand Stack Overflow's strengths and weaknesses as a development tool. This article is part of a special issue on Crowdsourcing for Software Engineering.

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Published In

IEEE Software Volume 34, Issue 2

March 2017

107 pages

ISSN:0740-7459

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IEEE Computer Society Press

Washington, DC, United States

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Published: 01 March 2017

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Weber TBrandmaier MSchmidt AMayer S(2024)Significant Productivity Gains through Programming with Large Language ModelsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36611458:EICS(1-29)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
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Qian CWexler J(2024)Take It, Leave It, or Fix It: Measuring Productivity and Trust in Human-AI CollaborationProceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/3640543.3645198(370-384)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
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Kabir SUdo-Imeh DKou BZhang T(2024)Is Stack Overflow Obsolete? An Empirical Study of the Characteristics of ChatGPT Answers to Stack Overflow QuestionsProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642596(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Bradley NFritz THolmes RRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)Supporting Web-Based API Searches in the IDE Using SignaturesProceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3597503.3639089(1-12)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
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Yang WZhang CPan MChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)Understanding the Topics and Challenges of GPU Programming by Classifying and Analyzing Stack Overflow PostsProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616365(1444-1456)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
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