How Is Code Recommendation Applied in Android Development: A Qualitative Review

Abstract

Code recommendation has been an indispensable feature of IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for modern software developers. Android developers especially require code recommendation support to ensure high development efficiency and quality, as Android applications are developed based on Android application framework and thus are more pattern-based. Many techniques and tools have been developed to support code recommendation in different ways. However, it is not clear how these techniques and tools can be used in Android development and whether Android development can be well supported by them. In this paper, we present a qualitative review on code recommendation techniques and tools with the focus of support for Android development. We first categorize code recommendation techniques and tools reported in literatures and then evaluate them towards the requirements of Android development. The evaluation results enable us to draw a comprehensive image of how code recommendation benefits Android development and also the deficiencies of state-of-the-art code recommendation techniques in meeting specific requirements of Android development. Based on the evaluation, a comprehensive discussion is presented to suggest possible improvement and future research directions of code recommendation techniques.