Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature

Anand Ashok Sawant; Maurício Aniche; Arie van Deursen; Alberto Bacchelli

Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature

Anand Ashok Sawant, Maurício Aniche, Arie van Deursen, Alberto Bacchelli

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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Abstract

Deprecation is a language feature that allows API producers to mark a feature as obsolete. We aim to gain a deep understanding of the needs of API producers and consumers alike regarding deprecation. To that end, we investigate why API producers deprecate features, whether they remove deprecated features, how they expect consumers to react, and what prompts an API consumer to react to deprecation. To achieve this goal we conduct semi-structured interviews with 17 third-party Java API producers and survey 170 Java developers. We observe that the current deprecation mechanism in Java and the proposal to enhance it does not address all the needs of a developer. This leads us to propose and evaluate three further enhancements to the deprecation mechanism.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ICSE' 18 Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computer Machinery
Pages	561-571
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-5638-1
Publication status	Published - 2018
Event	ICSE 2018: 40th International Conference on Software Engineering - Gothenburg, Sweden Duration: 27 May 2018 → 3 Jun 2018 Conference number: 40 https://www.icse2018.org/

Conference

Conference	ICSE 2018
Country/Territory	Sweden
City	Gothenburg
Period	27/05/18 → 3/06/18
Internet address	https://www.icse2018.org/

Keywords

API
deprecation
Java

Access to Document

deprecation_interviewAccepted author manuscript, 1.1 MB

Cite this

@inproceedings{f7a1017782fa4b23ae4b090fc9502fc9,

title = "Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature",

abstract = "Deprecation is a language feature that allows API producers to mark a feature as obsolete. We aim to gain a deep understanding of the needs of API producers and consumers alike regarding deprecation. To that end, we investigate why API producers deprecate features, whether they remove deprecated features, how they expect consumers to react, and what prompts an API consumer to react to deprecation. To achieve this goal we conduct semi-structured interviews with 17 third-party Java API producers and survey 170 Java developers. We observe that the current deprecation mechanism in Java and the proposal to enhance it does not address all the needs of a developer. This leads us to propose and evaluate three further enhancements to the deprecation mechanism.",

keywords = "API, deprecation, Java",

author = "Sawant, {Anand Ashok} and Maur{\'i}cio Aniche and {van Deursen}, Arie and Alberto Bacchelli",

year = "2018",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-1-4503-5638-1",

pages = "561--571",

booktitle = "ICSE' 18 Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering",

publisher = "Association for Computer Machinery",

note = "ICSE 2018 : 40th International Conference on Software Engineering ; Conference date: 27-05-2018 Through 03-06-2018",

url = "https://www.icse2018.org/",

}

Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature. / Sawant, Anand Ashok; Aniche, Maurício ; van Deursen, Arie et al.
ICSE' 18 Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering. New York: Association for Computer Machinery, 2018. p. 561-571.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature

AU - Sawant, Anand Ashok

AU - Aniche, Maurício

AU - van Deursen, Arie

AU - Bacchelli, Alberto

N1 - Conference code: 40

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Deprecation is a language feature that allows API producers to mark a feature as obsolete. We aim to gain a deep understanding of the needs of API producers and consumers alike regarding deprecation. To that end, we investigate why API producers deprecate features, whether they remove deprecated features, how they expect consumers to react, and what prompts an API consumer to react to deprecation. To achieve this goal we conduct semi-structured interviews with 17 third-party Java API producers and survey 170 Java developers. We observe that the current deprecation mechanism in Java and the proposal to enhance it does not address all the needs of a developer. This leads us to propose and evaluate three further enhancements to the deprecation mechanism.

AB - Deprecation is a language feature that allows API producers to mark a feature as obsolete. We aim to gain a deep understanding of the needs of API producers and consumers alike regarding deprecation. To that end, we investigate why API producers deprecate features, whether they remove deprecated features, how they expect consumers to react, and what prompts an API consumer to react to deprecation. To achieve this goal we conduct semi-structured interviews with 17 third-party Java API producers and survey 170 Java developers. We observe that the current deprecation mechanism in Java and the proposal to enhance it does not address all the needs of a developer. This leads us to propose and evaluate three further enhancements to the deprecation mechanism.

KW - API

KW - deprecation

KW - Java

UR - https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3180170

M3 - Conference contribution

SN - 978-1-4503-5638-1

SP - 561

EP - 571

BT - ICSE' 18 Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

PB - Association for Computer Machinery

CY - New York

T2 - ICSE 2018

Y2 - 27 May 2018 through 3 June 2018

ER -

Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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Data originating from deprecation mechanism interviews

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Understanding Developers' Needs on Deprecation as a Language Feature

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Datasets

Data originating from deprecation mechanism interviews

Cite this