Authors
Sruti Srinivasa Ragavan, Mihai Codoban, David Piorkowski, Danny Dig, Margaret Burnett
Publication date
2019/7/29
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Software engineering
Volume
47
Issue
8
Pages
1644-1655
Publisher
IEEE
Description
Version Control Systems (VCS) are an important source of information for developers. This calls for a principled understanding of developers' information seeking in VCS-both for improving existing tools and for understanding requirements for new tools. Our prior work investigated empirically how and why developers seek information in VCS: in this paper, we complement and enrich our prior findings by reanalyzing the data via a theory's lens. Using the lens of Information Foraging Theory (IFT), we present new insights not revealed by the prior empirical work. First, while looking for specific information, participants' foraging behaviors were consistent with other foraging situations in SE; therefore, prior research on IFT-based SE tool design can be leveraged for VCS. Second, in change awareness foraging, participants consumed similar diets, but in subtly different ways than in other situations; this calls for further …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
SS Ragavan, M Codoban, D Piorkowski, D Dig… - IEEE Transactions on Software engineering, 2019