Programming languages are essential tools for developers, and their evolution plays a crucial role in supporting the activities of its developers. One instance of programming language evolution is the introduction of syntactic sugars, which are additional syntax elements that provide alternative, more readable code constructs. However, the process of designing and evolving a programming language has traditionally been guided by anecdotal experiences and intuition. Recent advances in tools and methodologies for mining open-source repositories have enabled developers to make data-driven software engineering decisions. In light of this, this paper proposes an approach for motivating data-driven programming evolution by applying frequent subgraph mining techniques to a large dataset of 166,827,154 open-source Java methods. The dataset is mined by generalizing Java control-flow graphs to capture broad programming language usages and instances of duplication. Frequent subgraphs are then extracted to identify potentially impactful opportunities for new syntactic sugars. Our diverse results demonstrate the benefits of the proposed technique by identifying new syntactic sugars involving a variety of programming constructs that could be implemented in Java, thus simplifying frequent code idioms. This approach can potentially provide valuable insights for Java language designers, and serve as a proof-of-concept for data-driven programming language evolution.
Thu 18 AprDisplayed time zone: Lisbon change
14:00 - 15:30 | Analytics 3Research Track / Journal-first Papers / Demonstrations at Maria Helena Vieira da Silva Chair(s): Sridhar Chimalakonda Indian Institute of Technology, Tirupati | ||
14:00 15mTalk | Less is More? An Empirical Study on Configuration Issues in Python PyPI Ecosystem Research Track Yun Peng The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ruida Hu Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Ruoke Wang Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Cuiyun Gao Harbin Institute of Technology, Shuqing Li The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Michael Lyu The Chinese University of Hong Kong | ||
14:15 15mTalk | Data-Driven Evidence-Based Syntactic Sugar Design Research Track David OBrien Iowa State University, Robert Dyer University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Tien N. Nguyen University of Texas at Dallas, Hridesh Rajan Iowa State University | ||
14:30 15mTalk | Revisiting Android App Categorization Research Track Marco Alecci University of Luxembourg, Jordan Samhi CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Tegawendé F. Bissyandé University of Luxembourg, Jacques Klein University of Luxembourg | ||
14:45 15mTalk | Are Your Requests Your True Needs? Checking Excessive Data Collection in VPA App Research Track Fuman Xie University of Queensland, Chuan Yan University of Queensland, Mark Huasong Meng National University of Singapore, Shaoming Teng The University of Queensland, Yanjun Zhang Deakin University, Guangdong Bai University of Queensland | ||
15:00 7mTalk | Acrobats and Safety-Nets: Problematizing Large-Scale Agile Software Development Journal-first Papers Knut Rolland University of Oslo, Brian Fitzgerald Lero - The Irish Software Research Centre and University of Limerick, Torgeir Dingsøyr Norwegian University of Science and Technology and SimulaMet, Klaas-Jan Stol Lero; University College Cork; SINTEF Digital Link to publication DOI | ||
15:07 7mTalk | Program Transformation Landscapes for Automated Program Modification Using Gin: Extended Abstract Journal-first Papers Justyna Petke University College London, Brad Alexander University of Adelaide, Earl T. Barr University College London, Alexander E.I. Brownlee University of Stirling, Markus Wagner Monash University, Australia, David R. White University of Sheffield | ||
15:14 7mTalk | Boidae: Your Personal Mining Platform Demonstrations Brian Sigurdson Bowling Green State University, Samuel W. Flint University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Robert Dyer University of Nebraska-Lincoln Pre-print Media Attached | ||
15:21 7mTalk | Code Mapper: Mapping the Global Contributions of OSS Demonstrations Thomas Le Tourneau CY Tech, Jasmine Latendresse Concordia University, Ahmad Abdellatif University of Calgary, Emad Shihab Concordia University | ||