arXiv subjects

Derek Robinson

Publications and source records attributed to Derek Robinson.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Autonomy Is An Acquired Taste: Exploring Developer Preferences for GitHub Bots

Software bots fulfill an important role in collective software development, and their adoption by developers promises increased productivity. Past research has identified that bots that communicate too often can irritate developers, which affects the utility of the bot. However, it is not clear what other properties of human-bot collaboration affect developers' preferences, or what impact these properties might have. The main idea of this paper is to explore characteristics affecting developer preferences for interactions between humans and bots, in the context of GitHub pull requests. We carried out an exploratory sequential study with interviews and a subsequent vignette-based survey. We find developers generally prefer bots that are personable but show little autonomy, however, more experienced developers tend to prefer more autonomous bots. Based on this empirical evidence, we recommend bot developers increase configuration options for bots so that individual developers and projects can configure bots to best align with their own preferences and project cultures.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2022

Error Identification Strategies for Python Jupyter Notebooks

Computational notebooks -- such as Jupyter or Colab -- combine text and data analysis code. They have become ubiquitous in the world of data science and exploratory data analysis. Since these notebooks present a different programming paradigm than conventional IDE-driven programming, it is plausible that debugging in computational notebooks might also be different. More specifically, since creating notebooks blends domain knowledge, statistical analysis, and programming, the ways in which notebook users find and fix errors in these different forms might be different. In this paper, we present an exploratory, observational study on how Python Jupyter notebook users find and understand potential errors in notebooks. Through a conceptual replication of study design investigating the error identification strategies of R notebook users, we presented users with Python Jupyter notebooks pre-populated with common notebook errors -- errors rooted in either the statistical data analysis, the knowledge of domain concepts, or in the programming. We then analyzed the strategies our study participants used to find these errors and determined how successful each strategy was at identifying errors. Our findings indicate that while the notebook programming environment is different from the environments used for traditional programming, debugging strategies remain quite similar. It is our hope that the insights presented in this paper will help both notebook tool designers and educators make changes to improve how data scientists discover errors more easily in the notebooks they write.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2022

Two Approaches to Survival Analysis of Open Source Python Projects

A recent study applied frequentist survival analysis methods to a subset of the Software Heritage Graph and determined which attributes of an OSS project contribute to its health. This paper serves as an exact replication of that study. In addition, Bayesian survival analysis methods were applied to the same dataset, and an additional project attribute was studied to serve as a conceptual replication. Both analyses focus on the effects of certain attributes on the survival of open-source software projects as measured by their revision activity. Methods such as the Kaplan-Meier estimator, Cox Proportional-Hazards model, and the visualization of posterior survival functions were used for each of the project attributes. The results show that projects which publish major releases, have repositories on multiple hosting services, possess a large team of developers, and make frequent revisions have a higher likelihood of survival in the long run. The findings were similar to the original study; however, a deeper look revealed quantitative inconsistencies.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2019

Ola Bratteli and his diagrams

This article discusses the life and work of Professor Ola Bratteli (1946--2015). Family, fellow students, his advisor, colleagues and coworkers review aspects of his life and his outstanding mathematical accomplishments.

math.HO↗