DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions

Han Wang; Chunyang Chen; Zhenchang Xing; John Grundy

doi:10.1145/3368089.3417931

DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions

Han Wang, Chunyang Chen, Zhenchang Xing, John Grundy

Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Other › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Developers can use different technologies for different software development tasks in their work. However, when faced with several technologies with comparable functionalities, it can be challenging for developers to select the most appropriate one, as trial and error comparisons among such technologies are time-consuming. Instead, developers resort to expert articles, read official documents or ask questions in Q&A sites for technology comparison. However, it is still very opportunistic whether they will get a comprehensive comparison, as online information is often fragmented, contradictory and biased. To overcome these limitations, we propose the DiffTech system that exploits the crowd sourced discussions from Stack Overflow, and assists technology comparison with an informative summary of different comparison aspects. We found 19,118 comparative sentences from 2,410 pairs of comparable technologies. We released our DiffTech website for public use. Our website attracts over 1800 users and we also receive some positive comments on social media. A walkthrough video of the tool demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixX41DXRNsI Website link: https://difftech.herokuapp.com/

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
Editors	Prem Devanbu, Myra Cohen, Thomas Zimmermann
Place of Publication	New York NY USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	1576-1580
Number of pages	5
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450370431
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3368089.3417931
Publication status	Published - 2020
Event	Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering 2020 - Virtual, United States of America Duration: 8 Nov 2020 → 13 Nov 2020 Conference number: 28th https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3368089 (Proceedings) https://2020.esec-fse.org (Website)

Conference

Conference	Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering 2020
Abbreviated title	ESEC/FSE 2020
Country/Territory	United States of America
City	Virtual
Period	8/11/20 → 13/11/20
Internet address	https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3368089 (Proceedings) https://2020.esec-fse.org (Website)

Keywords

Differencing similar technology
NLP
Stack Overflow

Access to Document

10.1145/3368089.3417931

Cite this

Wang, H., Chen, C., Xing, Z., & Grundy, J. (2020). DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions. In P. Devanbu, M. Cohen, & T. Zimmermann (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (pp. 1576-1580). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3368089.3417931

Wang, Han ; Chen, Chunyang ; Xing, Zhenchang et al. / DiffTech : a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions. Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. editor / Prem Devanbu ; Myra Cohen ; Thomas Zimmermann. New York NY USA : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2020. pp. 1576-1580

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abstract = "Developers can use different technologies for different software development tasks in their work. However, when faced with several technologies with comparable functionalities, it can be challenging for developers to select the most appropriate one, as trial and error comparisons among such technologies are time-consuming. Instead, developers resort to expert articles, read official documents or ask questions in Q&A sites for technology comparison. However, it is still very opportunistic whether they will get a comprehensive comparison, as online information is often fragmented, contradictory and biased. To overcome these limitations, we propose the DiffTech system that exploits the crowd sourced discussions from Stack Overflow, and assists technology comparison with an informative summary of different comparison aspects. We found 19,118 comparative sentences from 2,410 pairs of comparable technologies. We released our DiffTech website for public use. Our website attracts over 1800 users and we also receive some positive comments on social media. A walkthrough video of the tool demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixX41DXRNsI Website link: https://difftech.herokuapp.com/ ",

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language = "English",

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editor = "Prem Devanbu and Myra Cohen and Thomas Zimmermann",

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publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

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note = "Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering 2020, ESEC/FSE 2020 ; Conference date: 08-11-2020 Through 13-11-2020",

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Wang, H, Chen, C, Xing, Z & Grundy, J 2020, DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions. in P Devanbu, M Cohen & T Zimmermann (eds), Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York NY USA, pp. 1576-1580, Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering 2020, Virtual, New York, United States of America, 8/11/20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3368089.3417931

DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions. / Wang, Han; Chen, Chunyang; Xing, Zhenchang et al.
Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. ed. / Prem Devanbu; Myra Cohen; Thomas Zimmermann. New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2020. p. 1576-1580.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Other › peer-review

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AU - Chen, Chunyang

AU - Xing, Zhenchang

AU - Grundy, John

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PY - 2020

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AB - Developers can use different technologies for different software development tasks in their work. However, when faced with several technologies with comparable functionalities, it can be challenging for developers to select the most appropriate one, as trial and error comparisons among such technologies are time-consuming. Instead, developers resort to expert articles, read official documents or ask questions in Q&A sites for technology comparison. However, it is still very opportunistic whether they will get a comprehensive comparison, as online information is often fragmented, contradictory and biased. To overcome these limitations, we propose the DiffTech system that exploits the crowd sourced discussions from Stack Overflow, and assists technology comparison with an informative summary of different comparison aspects. We found 19,118 comparative sentences from 2,410 pairs of comparable technologies. We released our DiffTech website for public use. Our website attracts over 1800 users and we also receive some positive comments on social media. A walkthrough video of the tool demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixX41DXRNsI Website link: https://difftech.herokuapp.com/

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PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

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ER -

Wang H, Chen C, Xing Z, Grundy J. DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions. In Devanbu P, Cohen M, Zimmermann T, editors, Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2020. p. 1576-1580 doi: 10.1145/3368089.3417931

DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

HCMDSE: Human-centric Model-driven Software Engineering

Cite this

DiffTech: a tool for differencing similar technologies from question-and-answer discussions

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Projects

HCMDSE: Human-centric Model-driven Software Engineering

Cite this