This document discusses how crowdsourcing ideas and feedback within an integrated development environment (IDE) can speed up the software development process. It proposes collecting data on code usage patterns from developers and using that data to provide automated code completions, documentation, and help for common tasks. Error reports could also be crowdsourced and linked to existing solutions to help developers quickly resolve issues. The goal is to leverage collective intelligence and experience within the development community to reduce individual learning curves and speeds.

1. NEXT GENERATION IDE
HOW CROWDSOURCING (IN) YOUR IDE SPEEDS UP
YOUR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

2. About me
• Project Lead of Eclipse Code Recommenders
• Eclipse Committer since 2010
• Plug-in Developer for 10 years (Eclipse 2.1)
• Member of the Eclipse Architecture Council
• Co-Lead of Java User Group Darmstadt
• Speaker at JUGs, EclipseCon, JAX, JavaOne…
• PhD in Computer Science
• CEO of Codetrails
• Passion to improve developers day-to-day work with
intelligent and practical tools - mostly using Data
Mining on Big (Software Engineering) Data.
2
Marcel Bruch
@marcelbruch

3. About Codetrails
• The company behind Eclipse Code Recommenders
• Software Tool Developers
• Data Mining Specialists
• Eclipse RCP Experts & Consultants
• Research Spin-off Darmstadt University of Technology
3

4. NEXT GENERATION IDE
HOW CROWDSOURCING (IN) YOUR IDE SPEEDS UP
YOUR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

5. Back in 1995…
5

6. 6
{ — Your Software —– }
Developer

7. ——— 7
{ — Your Software
—– }
Developer

8. { ——– }
8
Your Software
{ — —– }
Developer
Your Software

9. Your Software
Your Software
9
Framework
Developer
?
{ ——– }
{ — —– }
ADpepvleicloaptioenr
Developer
!

10. Here the problems begin…
Documentation
10
{ ——– }
docs are
missing!
there are
no code
examples!
docs are
outdated!
api is
bloated!
code has
many bugs!
is the api
easy?
is
documentation
good?
does it work?
are there
bugs?
where to
improve?
where do
you struggle?
what do you
use?
what can I
remove?

11. How to leverage the crowd?
11
Documentation
Framework
Developer
{ ——— }
{ — —— { } ——— }
Application
Developers
{ — —— }

12. How to leverage the crowd?
12
Framework
Developer
——— { —— — { }
——— —— — }
{ — —— }
{ — —— }
Application
Developers
{ — — —}
{ — — —}
{ — — —}
{ — — —}

13. By integrating with your IDE…
13
Debugging
instructions
Source code
Used
frameworks
Selected
proposals
Viewed
documentation
Runtime errors
and stacktraces

14. Bad Javadoc
In good documentation we trust…

15. In API documentation we trust
15
/**
* Rollsback the transaction if any and clears different lists to
* start with an empty resource again.
* Note that the super.doUnload is not called because that clears
* the list resulting in all kinds of undesirable inverseremoves.
*/
@Override
protected void doUnload() {
super.doUnload();
}
No? Are you sure?

16. In those situations you wish you could…
16
/**
* Rollsback the transaction if any and clears different lists to
* start with an empty resource again.
* Note that the super.doUnload is not called because that clears
* the list resulting in all kinds of undesirable inverseremoves.
*/
@Override
protected void doUnload() {
super.doUnload();
}

17. …and let the committers know…
17
Hello committers,
we received a user feedback for TYPE «com.your.class». The user rated the
overall documentation quality as «NOT_AT_ALL_HELPFUL». In particular
he/she said:
1. UNCLEAR_INFORMATION
The user provided the following comment:
«The class is deprecated but no pointers are given which other class to use
instead. Please provide a hint in the class javadoc. Thanks, Frederik»
Thank you for caring.
Your friendly
Javadoc Feedback Inbox
The class is deprecated but no pointers are given which other
class to use instead. Please provide a hint in the class javadoc.
Thanks, Frederik
Customer case study & prototype at Codetrails.

18. No examples
A snippet says more than thousand words

19. These I’ve a great idea moments…
19
{ ——– }
Application
Developer
Product
Manager

20. How we learn about it…
20
{ ——– }
Application
Developer

21. But if we just could have asked Eclipse…
public class HelpExample extends WizardPage
{
|
21
Eclipse Code Recommenders Snipmatch
See http://eclipse.org/recommenders/manual/#snipmatch

22. Creating snippets for the community…
22

23. Sharing with the community…
23

24. Integrating Snippets into API docs
24
public class MyDialog extends Dialog {
(automatically, of course)
@Override
protected Control createDialogArea(Composite parent) {

25. Codesearch reloaded
More than just ”Find References in your Workspace”…

26. How do I…
26
void showHelp() {
// How do I get the help system?
IWorkbenchHelpSystem help = |
}

27. You should ask your IDE…

28. … obtain an instance of X?
28
void showHelp() {
// How do I get the help system?
IWorkbenchHelpSystem help = |

29. …which arguments to fill in?
29

30. …about frequent usage patterns?
30

31. Where does that data come from?
(i) eclipse workspace (ii) maven repository
Codetrails Connect Codesearch, currently closed beta 31

32. Overwhelming APIs
What do you think of when you hear “bloated API”?

33. One example…
33
@Override
public void create(JPanel parent) {
JButton button = new JButton();
button.|
Which method will you
call next in this situation?

34. 1 of 389?

35. A fairly trivial example…
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.|
35

36. What if we’d just count clicks…?
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.|
36
{ ——– }
Application
Developer
{
„type“: „StringBuilder“,
„completion“: „append(String)“
}

37. We could crowdsource code completion!
37
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.|
Codetrails Connect Community Edition,
Install from http://www.codetrails.com/connect

38. How about argument completions?
38
@Override
protected Control createControl(final Composite parent) {
textWidget = new Text(parent, SWT.BORDER);
textWidget.addListener(eventType, listener)
Codetrails Connect Community Edition,
Install from http://www.codetrails.com/connect

39. And when extending a framework base class?
39
public class MyDialog extends Dialog {
|
Codetrails Connect Community Edition,
Install from http://www.codetrails.com/connect

40. Successfully concluded sessions
40
crowdsourced
79,5
JDT
66,5
JDT as-is vs. crowdsourced
13% less terminated sessions,
measured in over 400.000
sessions

41. Bug detection, crowd-style
99.5% of all developers didn’t do it like you. So…

42. Costs fixing a bug between code and production
42
Relative cost of a bugfix
25x
10x
0x 0x 1x
Req Design Code Acceptance Production
http://www.abeacha.com/NIST_press_release_bugs_cost.htm

43. What’s wrong with this code?
43
@Override
public void createControl(Composite parent) {
Composite container = new Composite(parent, SWT.NONE);
container.setLayout(new GridLayout());
TableViewer tableViewer = new TableViewer(container);
tableViewer.setUseHashlookup(false);
tableViewer.addSelectionChangedListener(listener);
Table table = tableViewer.getTable();
tableViewer.setCellEditors(editors);
tableViewer.setColumnProperties(columnProperties);
tableViewer.setLabelProvider(labelProvider);
tableViewer.setInput(input);
tableViewer.setContentProvider(provider);
}

44. Findbugs’ crowd ed. would find it…
Codetrails Findbugs, currently closed alpha 44

45. If no one dared to do it like this…
45

46. Rethinking Stacktraces
“People who ‘bought’ this NullPointerException typically fixed this by...”

47. Automated Error Reporting in Eclipse Mars
https://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2014/november/article1.php 47

48. 48

49. Committers get notified about new bugs…
49

50. Reporters get immediate feedback
50
Your report has been matched against an existing bug which
was closed as FIXED with comment:
Please update to the latest version.
See Bug 446841 for details.

51. Eclipse Committer Dashboard of the Automated Error Reports plugin 51

52. Finding similar errors (aka duplicates)
org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Invalid Thread access
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3884)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3799)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3770)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.error(Widget.java:463)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.checkWidget(Widget.java:355)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.ProgressBar.setSelection(ProgressBar.java:317)
at org.eclipse.recommenders.stacktraces.Demo.run(Demo.java:23)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
52
+ java version
+ bundle/jar versions
+ installed extensions
+ thread dumps
+ …

53. Automated error reporting is nice, but…
How can we support you in writing software?
53

54. Debugging – the old way
54
Exception in thread “Thread-0” org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Invalid Thread access
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3884)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3799)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3770)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.error(Widget.java:463)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.checkWidget(Widget.java:355)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.ProgressBar.setSelection(ProgressBar.java:317)
at org.eclipse.recommenders.stacktraces.Demo.run(Demo.java:23)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

55. Getting help – the old way
55

56. But usually you get…
56

57. How about sharing exceptions that
occurred at development time?
57
Exception in thread “Thread-0” org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Invalid Thread access
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3884)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3799)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:3770)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.error(Widget.java:463)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.checkWidget(Widget.java:355)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.ProgressBar.setSelection(ProgressBar.java:317)
at org.eclipse.recommenders.stacktraces.Demo.run(Demo.java:23)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

58. Telling your users what went wrong
Found a match!
We found a knowledge base entry that matches your stacktrace.
The SWTException “Invalid thread access” you experienced
is caused by calling an UI widget’s methods from a non-ui
thread. See knowledge base entry #341 for further details.
A concept yet, no prototype. 58

59. How about stacktraces.org?
59

60. Take aways?
60

61. The crowd is here to stay!
61

62. The IDE is your browser - let’s learn to use it as such
62
Debugging
instructions
Source code
Used
frameworks
Selected
proposals
Viewed
documentation
Runtime errors
and stacktraces

63. Thank You.
marcelbruch marcel.bruch@codetrails.com
@marcelbruch

64. Contact Us
64
Codetrails GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7
64293 Darmstadt, Germany
www: codetrails.com
phone: 06151 / 2767 092
email: info@codetrails.com
Dr. Marcel Bruch
CEO
mobile: 0179 / 1317 721
email: marcel.bruch@codetrails.com