ICSE 2018 and ICPC 2019 Research Dataset on Live Programming

The release includes a dataset analyzed in the two following research works: 

"The Road to Live Programming: Insights From the Practice." (ICSE 2018)

Abstract: Live Programming environments allow programmers to get feedback instantly while changing software. Liveness is gaining attention among industrial and open-source communities; several IDEs offer high degrees of liveness. While several studies looked at how programmers work during software evolution tasks, none of them consider live environments. We conduct such a study based on an analysis of 17 programming sessions of practitioners using Pharo, a mature Live Programming environment. The study is complemented by a survey and subsequent analysis of 16 programming sessions in additional languages, e.g., JavaScript. We document the approaches taken by developers during their work. We find that some liveness features are extensively used, and have an impact on the way developers navigate source code and objects in their work.

"Live Programming and Software Evolution: Questions during a Programming Change Task" (ICPC 2019)

Abstract: Several studies provide the questions developers ask during software evolution tasks, providing foundations for subsequent work. Nevertheless, none of them focus on Live Programming environments that gain in popularity as they are perceived to have a positive effect on programming tasks. Studying the impact of a Live Programming environment on software development activities is thus the goal of this study.

In a partial replication of the study by Sillito et al., we conducted 17 software evolution sessions in a Live Programming environment and report 1,161 developer questions asked during these sessions. We contrast our results with the results by Sillito et al., focusing on the question occurrences, question complexity and what information participants used to gain a required knowledge. We report eight new questions and observe that the Live Programming facilities do have an impact on the way developers ask questions about source code and use tools to gain corresponding knowledge.