Impact of programming languages on machine learning bugs

Machine learning (ML) is on the rise to be ubiquitous in modern software. Still, its use is challenging for software developers. So far, research has focused on the ML libraries to find and mitigate these challenges. However, there is initial evidence that programming languages also add to the challenges, identifiable in different distributions of bugs in ML programs. To fill this research gap, we propose the first empirical study on the impact of programming languages on bugs in ML programs. We plan to analyze software from GitHub and related discussions in GitHub issues and Stack Overflow for bug distributions in ML programs, aiming to identify correlations with the chosen programming language, its features and the application domain. This study's results enable better-targeted use of available programming language technology in ML programs, preventing bugs, reducing errors and speeding up development.