Tue 6 Nov 2018 16:15 - 16:37 at Horizons 10-11 - Developer Studies Chair(s): Thomas LaToza

Software development includes diverse tasks such as implementing new features, analyzing requirements, and fixing bugs. Being an expert in those tasks requires a certain set of skills, knowledge, and experience. Several studies investigated individual aspects of software development expertise, but what is missing is a comprehensive theory. We present a first conceptual theory of software development expertise that is grounded in data from a mixed-methods survey with 335 software developers and in literature on expertise and expert performance. Our theory currently focuses on programming, but already provides valuable insights for researchers, developers, and employers. The theory describes important properties of software development expertise and which factors foster or hinder its formation, including how developers’ performance may decline over time. Moreover, our quantitative results show that developers’ expertise self-assessments are context-dependent and that experience is not necessarily related to expertise.

Tue 6 Nov

Displayed time zone: Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey change

15:30 - 17:00
Developer StudiesResearch Papers / Journal-First at Horizons 10-11
Chair(s): Thomas LaToza George Mason University
15:30
22m
Talk
Programmers do not Favor Lambda Expressions for Concurrent Object-Oriented Code
Journal-First
DOI
15:52
22m
Talk
How Do Developers Utilize Source Code from Stack Overflow?
Journal-First
Yuhao Wu , Shaowei Wang Queen's University, Cor-Paul Bezemer University of Alberta, Canada, Katsuro Inoue Osaka University
DOI
16:15
22m
Talk
Towards a Theory of Software Development Expertise
Research Papers
Sebastian Baltes University of Trier, Stephan Diehl Computer Science, University Trier, Germany
Pre-print
16:37
22m
Full-paper
What Makes a Code Change Easier to Review? An Empirical Investigation on Code Change Reviewability
Research Papers
Achyudh Ram University of Waterloo, Anand Ashok Sawant Delft University of Technology, Marco Castelluccio Mozilla Foundation, UK, Alberto Bacchelli University of Zurich
Link to publication DOI Pre-print Media Attached