Write a Blog >>
ICSE 2020
Wed 24 June - Thu 16 July 2020
Wed 8 Jul 2020 16:13 - 16:21 at Baekje - A10-Human Aspects 2 Chair(s): Giuseppe Scanniello

Stack Overflow accumulates an enormous amount of software engineering knowledge. However, as time passes, certain knowledge in answers may become obsolete. Such obsolete answers, if not identified or documented clearly, may mislead answer seekers and cause unexpected problems (e.g., using an out-dated security protocol). In this paper, we investigate how the knowledge in answers becomes obsolete and identify the characteristics of such obsolete answers. We find that: 1) More than half of the obsolete answers (58.4%) were probably already obsolete when they were first posted. 2) When an obsolete answer is observed, only a small proportion (20.5%) of such answers are ever updated. 3) Answers to questions in certain tags (e.g., node.js, ajax, android, and objective-c) are more likely to become obsolete. Our findings suggest that Stack Overflow should develop mechanisms to encourage the whole community to maintain answers (to avoid obsolete answers) and answer seekers are encouraged to carefully go through all information (e.g., comments) in answer threads.

Wed 8 Jul

Displayed time zone: (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time change

16:05 - 17:05
A10-Human Aspects 2Journal First / Technical Papers at Baekje
Chair(s): Giuseppe Scanniello University of Basilicata
16:05
8m
Talk
Characterizing and Identifying Reverted CommitsJ1
Journal First
Meng Yan Chongqing University, Xin Xia Monash University, David Lo Singapore Management University, Ahmed E. Hassan Queen's University, Shanping Li Zhejiang University
16:13
8m
Talk
An Empirical Study of Obsolete Answers on Stack OverflowJ1
Journal First
Haoxiang Zhang Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab (SAIL), Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Shaowei Wang Mississippi State University, Tse-Hsun (Peter) Chen Concordia University, Ying Zou Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Ahmed E. Hassan Queen's University
16:21
8m
Talk
An Empirical Characterization of Bad Practices in Continuous IntegrationJ1
Journal First
Fiorella Zampetti University of Sannio, Carmine Vassallo University of Zurich, Sebastiano Panichella Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Gerardo Canfora University of Sannio, Harald Gall University of Zurich, Massimiliano Di Penta University of Sannio
Link to publication DOI Pre-print
16:29
8m
Talk
To the Attention of Mobile Software Developers: Guess What, Test your App!J1
Journal First
Luís Cruz Deflt University of Technology, Rui Abreu Instituto Superior Técnico, U. Lisboa & INESC-ID, David Lo Singapore Management University
DOI Pre-print Media Attached
16:37
12m
Talk
Primers or Reminders? The Effects of Existing Review Comments on Code ReviewACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Artifact AwardsArtifact ReusableTechnicalArtifact Available
Technical Papers
Davide Spadini Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, Gül Calikli Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Alberto Bacchelli University of Zurich
DOI Pre-print Media Attached