The implications of method placement on API learnability

Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

Volumn , Issue , 2008, Pages 105-112

  Stylos, Jeffrey ^a   Myers, Brad A ^a  

^a Carnegie Mellon University   (United States)

Author keywords

APIs; Documentation; Frameworks; Libraries; Usability; User studies

Indexed keywords

DOCUMENTATION; LEARNABILITY; MAIN OBJECTS; MULTIPLE OBJECTS; OBJECT ORIENTED; USER STUDY;

COMPUTER SOFTWARE; LIBRARIES;

APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES (API);

EID: 63449102710     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Conference Proceeding    
DOI: 10.1145/1453101.1453117     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (19)

1. Bloch, J., Effective Java Programming Language Guide, Sun Microsystems, Mountain View, CA, 2001.
2. Bore, C., and S. Bore, "Profiling software API usability for consumer electronics", Consumer Electronics, 2005.
3. Chambers, C. Object-Oriented Multi-Methods in Cecil. European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. 33-56. 1992.
4. Clarke, S. Measuring API Usability. Dr. Dobbs Journal, May 2004, pp S6-S9. 2004.
5. Clarke, S. Describing and Measuring API Usability with the Cognitive Dimensions. Cognitive Dimensions of Notations 10th Anniversary Workshop. 2006.
6. Clarke, S. "What is an End User Software Engineer?", End User Software Engineering, Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings, Dagstuhl, Germany, 2007.
7. Cwalina, K. and Abrams, B. Framework Design Guidelines. Addison-Wesley, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005.
8. DeLine, R., Czerwinski, M. and Robertson, G. Easing Program Comprehension by Sharing Navigation Data. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. 241-248. 2005.
9. Ellis, B., Stylos, J. and Myers, B. The Factory Pattern in API Design: A Usability Evaluation. International Conference on Software Engineering. 2007.
10. Green, T.R.G., and M. Petre, "Usability Analysis of Visual Programming Environments: A 'Cognitive Dimensions' Framework", Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 1996, pp 131-174.
11. Holmes, R. and Murphy, G. C. Using structural context to recommend source code examples. Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (St. Louis, MO, USA, May 15-21, 2005). 117-125.
12. Ko, A., Myers, B. and Aung, H. Six Learning Barriers in End-User Programming Systems. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (Rome, Italy, September 26-29, 2004).199-206. 2004.
13. LaToza, T, Garlan, D., Herbsleb, J., and Myers, B. Program comprehension as fact finding. ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. 361-370. 2007.
14. Lawrance, J., Bellamy, R. and Burnett, M. Scents in Programs: Does Information Foraging Theory Apply to Program Maintenance? IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. 15-22. 2007.
15. McLellan, S.G., A.W. Roesler, et al, "Building More Usable APIs", Software, IEEE, 1998, 15(3) pp 78-86.
16. Stephens, D. W., and Krebs, J. R. Foraging theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1986.
17. Stylos, J., and Myers, B. Mica: A Web-Search Tool for Finding API Components and Examples. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. 195-202. 2006.
18. Stylos, J. and Clarke, S. Usability Implications of Requiring Parameters in Objects' Constructors. International Conference on Software Engineering. 529-539. 2007.
19. Stylos, J. and Myers, B. Mapping the Space of API Design Decisions. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. 50-57. 2007.