The end-to-end use of source code examples: An exploratory study

Abstract

Source code examples are valuable to developers needing to use an unfamiliar application programming interface (API). Numerous approaches exist to help developers locate source code examples; while some of these help the developer to select the most promising examples, none help the developer to reuse the example itself. Without explicit tool support for the complete end-to-end task, the developer can waste time and energy on examples that ultimately fail to be appropriate; as a result, the overhead required to reuse an example can restrict a developer's willingness to investigate multiple examples to find the “best” one for their situation. This paper outlines four case studies involving the end-to-end use of source code examples: we investigate the overhead and pitfalls involved in combining a few state-of-the-art techniques to support the end-to-end use of source code examples.