How actively do programmers use refactoring tools?
30 Jan 2013
The short answer is: "not so much". To find out how actively programmers use the refactoring tool, we analyzed the invocations of the Eclipse refactoring tool for Java in the huge data set of the Eclipse foundation. Over the years, the Eclipse foundation has collected data about invocations of commands, views, and perspectives of Eclipse...
Programmers rarely preview automated refactorings
22 Jan 2012
Most refactoring tools let the programmer preview the changes before applying the refactoring. Usually, a refactoring preview window has two parts: an overview of the affected parts of the code and views of the changes to each part. The overview gives a high-level summary of parts of the code that the refactoring will affect. The...
Programmers use automated refactorings even when they may break the code
19 Jan 2012
Refactoring is defined as the process of changing the internal design of the code without affecting its external behavior. Because refactorings do not alter the visible behavior of the program, they are known as behavior-preserving transformations. Bill Opdyke wrote the first PhD thesis on refactoring and cataloged a few refactorings. Later, Martin Fowler extended the...
Programmers prefer context-aware and lightweight methods of invoking automated refactorings
03 Jan 2012
One of the aspects of automated refactorings that we studied using CodingSpectator was the invocation method. Eclipse JDT supports the following methods of invoking automated refactorings: The programmer can invoke an automated refactoring from the "Refactor" menu. The programmer can invoke an automated refactoring by right-clicking on a program element an selecting the desired refactoring...
Why do programmers underuse automated refactorings?
29 Dec 2011
Prior research studies have suggested that most automated refactorings are greatly underused, i.e. programmers usually perform refactorings manually even though modern IDEs provide automated support for those refactorings. Our primary research question was: "Why do programmers underuse automated refactorings?" Eventually, we learned not only about the underuse of automated refactorings but also their unrecommended uses....
We developed CodingSpectator to be a platform for Eclipse-based user studies
28 Dec 2011
At the University of Illinois, we have a fairly large group that is working on improving Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), especially for refactoring. Recently, our group has developed Photran, an IDE for Fortran, and several refactoring tools for parallelism like Immutator, ReLooper, and DPJizer. Naturally, we want to know whether we are making the IDE...
CodingSpectator now supports Eclipse Indigo SR1
25 Dec 2011
We're happy to announce that CodingSpectator now supports Eclipse 3.7.1 (Indigo SR1). You can install CodingSpectator on Eclipse Indigo SR1 from the update site at http://codingspectator.cs.illinois.edu/updates/indigo-sr1/. See the installation instructions or the user guide for more information. CodingSpectator modifies parts of the Eclipse IDE to collect data about programmers' Java development activities. To collect such...
Welcome to CodingSpectator's Blog!
14 Dec 2011
So far, we have written two papers on the CodingSpectator study. However, the study is not over yet and we're still looking for more participants. In this blog, we will discuss some of the results of the CodingSpectator study and its implications on the design of modern IDEs. Our study has revealed some of the...