On the Generalizability of Deep Learning-based Code Completion Across Programming Language VersionsICPCICPC Full paper
Code completion is a key feature of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), aimed at predicting the next tokens a developer is likely to write, helping them write code faster and with less effort. Modern code completion approaches are often powered by deep learning (DL) models. However, the swift evolution of programming languages poses a critical challenge to the performance of DL-based code completion models: Can these models generalize across different language versions? This paper delves into such a question. In particular, we assess the capabilities of a state-of-the-art model, CodeT5, to generalize across nine different Java versions, ranging from Java 2 to Java 17, while being exclusively trained on Java 8 code. Our evaluation spans three completion scenarios, namely, predicting tokens, constructs (e.g., the condition of an if statement) and entire code blocks. The results of our study reveal a noticeable disparity among language versions, with the worst performance being obtained in Java 2 and 17—the most far apart versions compared to Java 8. We investigate possible causes for the performance degradation and show that the adoption of a limited version-specific fine-tuning can partially alleviate the problem. Our work raises awareness on the importance of continuous model refinement, and it can inform the design of alternatives to make code completion models more robust to language evolution.
Mon 15 AprDisplayed time zone: Lisbon change
14:00 - 15:30 | Code + Documentation GenerationResearch Track / / Early Research Achievements (ERA) / Replications and Negative Results (RENE) at Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen Chair(s): Massimiliano Di Penta University of Sannio, Italy | ||
14:00 10mTalk | MESIA: Understanding and Leveraging Supplementary Nature of Method-level Comments for Automatic Comment GenerationICPCICPC Full paper Research Track Xinglu Pan Peking University, Chenxiao Liu Peking University, Yanzhen Zou Peking University, Tao Xie Peking University, Bing Xie Peking University Pre-print | ||
14:10 10mTalk | Compositional API Recommendation for Library-Oriented Code GenerationICPCICPC Full paper Research Track Zexiong Ma Peking University, Shengnan An Xi’an Jiaotong University, Bing Xie Peking University, Zeqi Lin Microsoft Research, China Pre-print | ||
14:20 10mTalk | On the Generalizability of Deep Learning-based Code Completion Across Programming Language VersionsICPCICPC Full paper Research Track Matteo Ciniselli Università della Svizzera Italiana, Alberto Martin-Lopez Software Institute - USI, Lugano, Gabriele Bavota Software Institute @ Università della Svizzera Italiana | ||
14:30 10mTalk | ESGen: Commit Message Generation Based on Edit Sequence of Code ChangeICPCICPC Full paperVirtual-Talk Research Track Xiangping Chen Sun Yat-sen University, Yangzi Li SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY, Zhicao Tang SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY, Yuan Huang School of Data and Computer Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, Haojie Zhou School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China, Mingdong Tang Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Zibin Zheng Sun Yat-sen University | ||
14:40 10mTalk | Improving AST-Level Code Completion with Graph Retrieval and Multi-Field AttentionICPCICPC Full paperVirtual-Talk Research Track Yu Xia Central South University, Tian Liang Central South University, Wei-Huan Min Central South University, Li Kuang School of Computer Science and Engineering, Central South University | ||
14:50 10mTalk | Exploring and Improving Code Completion for Test CodeICPCICPC Full paper Research Track Tingwei Zhu Nanjing University, Zhongxin Liu Zhejiang University, Tongtong Xu Huawei, Ze Tang Software Institute, Nanjing University, Tian Zhang Nanjing University, Minxue Pan Nanjing University, Xin Xia Huawei Technologies | ||
15:00 10mTalk | Understanding the Impact of Branch Edit Features for the Automatic Prediction of Merge Conflict ResolutionsICPCICPC RENE Paper Replications and Negative Results (RENE) Waad riadh aldndni Virginia Tech, Francisco Servant ITIS Software, University of Malaga, Na Meng Virginia Tech | ||
15:10 4mTalk | Investigating the Efficacy of Large Language Models for Code Clone DetectionICPCICPC ERA Paper Early Research Achievements (ERA) Mohamad Khajezade University of British Columbia Okanagan, Jie JW Wu University of British Columbia (UBC), Fatemeh Hendijani Fard University of British Columbia, Gema Rodríguez-Pérez University of British Columbia (UBC), Mohamed S Shehata University of British Columbia | ||
15:14 16mTalk | Code + Documentation Generation: Panel with SpeakersICPC Discussion |