The document presents a technique for determining the best version of a library to use based on analyzing usage trends across many projects. The technique was developed by analyzing over 250 Java projects and 450 library versions over two years. A tool called AKTARI was created to track popularity, usage trends, and instances of projects switching back to older versions as warnings against using certain versions. Both library users and developers can benefit from this crowd-sourced information when deciding which version to adopt.

1. Mining Trends
of
Library Usage
Yana Mileva Valentin Dallmeier
Saarland University Saarland University
Martin Burger Andreas Zeller
Saarland University Saarland University

2. Let’s switch to the newest!
Library: log4j
Newest version: log4j 1.2.15
Best version? No!

3. Why don’t people always
switch to the newest version?
the newest version has defects
“lots of work” to switch from an
older one to the new one
“until TranQL can handle derby 10.2”

4. Early Adopters vs. Late
Followers
Always update to the newest. Switch only if necessary.
Ready to take the risks. Consider which is the best.

5. Which is the best library
version to use?
The wisdom of the crowd
The more people use a specific library version,
the higher its usage is recommended.

6. The Crowd
250 real-life Apache Java projects
Analyzed period of two years (2007 - 2009)
450 different external library versions

7. The Analysis
(Maven)
<project> • Maven - the leading open-source
... project management tool for Java
<dependencies>
<dependency> projects.
<groupId>servlet-api</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
• Library dependencies are stored
in the meta information files.
...
</dependency>
... • The project meta data is
</dependencies> represented by Maven’s Project
... Object Model.
</project>
pom.xml excerpt

8. Which is the best library
version to use?
• Which is the most popular library version
right now?
• What is the usage trend of a particular
library version?
• Have people ever switched back from a
newer library version to an older one?

9. Which is the most popular
library version right now?
AKTARI: http://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/softevo/aktari.php

10. What is the usage trend?
80
junit 3.8.1
junit 3.8.2
junit 4.4
60
40
20
0
Jan 2007 Apr 2007 Jul 2007 Oct 2007 Jan 2008 Apr 2008 Jul 2008 Oct 2008
AKTARI: http://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/softevo/aktari.php

11. Have people switched back?
Switching back to an
Library version
older version %
junit 3.8.1 0%
log4j 1.2.15 57%
servlet-api 2.5 10%
AKTARI: http://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/softevo/aktari.php

12. Could AKTARI have warned
against using log4j 1.2.15?
Current popularity: 0%
Usage trend:
Switched back from: 57%

13. Who can use this info?
Library Users
s! Library Developers
Ye
id
sa
“which version to use?” “which version was successful?”
%
75

14. Contributions
• Learned from the crowd.
• Developed a technique that warns against
dangerous trends.
• Realized the technique into a web-based tool
called AKTARI.

15. Feedback Questions
• Learned from the crowd.
• How big of a crowd is enough?
• Developed a technique that warns against
dangerous trends.
• When do we know enough to issue a warning?
• Realized the technique into a web-based tool
called AKTARI.
• Can this be done for other languages but Java?

16. Debate Question
In what other software evolution
scenarios can the wisdom of the crowd
be used?