What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow

Pradeep K. Venkatesh; Shaohua Wang; Feng Zhang; Ying Zou; Ahmed E. Hassan

doi:10.1109/ICWS.2016.25

What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow

Pradeep K. Venkatesh, Shaohua Wang, Feng Zhang, Ying Zou, Ahmed E. Hassan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

Popularity of service-oriented computing makes more and more companies and organizations provide their services through Web Application Program Interfaces (Web APIs). The Web APIs are considered to offer a convenient way to integrate web services to client applications. However, the integration process is often challenging. For example, updated Web APIs may be no longer compatible with the current version of client applications, thus break the client applications. To help the integration process, it is of significant interest to understand the challenges that are encountered by client developers. Developer forums and Stack Overflow are commonly used by client developers to seek help from fellow peers. In this paper, we mine both developer forums and Stack Overflow to find the common challenges encountered by client developers. We perform an empirical study on 32 Web APIs with a total of 92,471 discussions. To extract topics from all discussions, we apply a topic modeling technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results show that on average five dominant topics can cover at least 50% of questions regarding each Web API. We further investigate how topics evolve across Web APIs, and find five patterns. As a summary, our findings highlight a list of dominant concerns and persistent concerns for each Web API that Web API providers should pay more attention to.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016
Editors	Stephan Reiff-Marganiec
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	131-138
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9781509026753
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2016.25
State	Published - Aug 31 2016
Externally published	Yes
Event	23rd IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016 - San Francisco, United States Duration: Jun 27 2016 → Jul 2 2016

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016

Other

Other	23rd IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016
Country/Territory	United States
City	San Francisco
Period	6/27/16 → 7/2/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Software
Computer Networks and Communications

Keywords

Client developer discussions
Crowd-sourced forum
Developer forum
Stack overflow
Topic modeling
Web API

Access to Document

10.1109/ICWS.2016.25

Cite this

Venkatesh, P. K., Wang, S., Zhang, F., Zou, Y., & Hassan, A. E. (2016). What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow. In S. Reiff-Marganiec (Ed.), Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016 (pp. 131-138). [7557994] (Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2016.25

Venkatesh, Pradeep K. ; Wang, Shaohua ; Zhang, Feng et al. / What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow. Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016. editor / Stephan Reiff-Marganiec. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2016. pp. 131-138 (Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016).

@inproceedings{c67a2ec498cb4532a92511c1dd293822,

title = "What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow",

abstract = "Popularity of service-oriented computing makes more and more companies and organizations provide their services through Web Application Program Interfaces (Web APIs). The Web APIs are considered to offer a convenient way to integrate web services to client applications. However, the integration process is often challenging. For example, updated Web APIs may be no longer compatible with the current version of client applications, thus break the client applications. To help the integration process, it is of significant interest to understand the challenges that are encountered by client developers. Developer forums and Stack Overflow are commonly used by client developers to seek help from fellow peers. In this paper, we mine both developer forums and Stack Overflow to find the common challenges encountered by client developers. We perform an empirical study on 32 Web APIs with a total of 92,471 discussions. To extract topics from all discussions, we apply a topic modeling technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results show that on average five dominant topics can cover at least 50% of questions regarding each Web API. We further investigate how topics evolve across Web APIs, and find five patterns. As a summary, our findings highlight a list of dominant concerns and persistent concerns for each Web API that Web API providers should pay more attention to.",

keywords = "Client developer discussions, Crowd-sourced forum, Developer forum, Stack overflow, Topic modeling, Web API",

author = "Venkatesh, {Pradeep K.} and Shaohua Wang and Feng Zhang and Ying Zou and Hassan, {Ahmed E.}",

year = "2016",

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Venkatesh, PK, Wang, S, Zhang, F, Zou, Y & Hassan, AE 2016, What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow. in S Reiff-Marganiec (ed.), Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016., 7557994, Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 131-138, 23rd IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016, San Francisco, United States, 6/27/16. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2016.25

What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow. / Venkatesh, Pradeep K.; Wang, Shaohua; Zhang, Feng et al.

Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016. ed. / Stephan Reiff-Marganiec. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2016. p. 131-138 7557994 (Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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AB - Popularity of service-oriented computing makes more and more companies and organizations provide their services through Web Application Program Interfaces (Web APIs). The Web APIs are considered to offer a convenient way to integrate web services to client applications. However, the integration process is often challenging. For example, updated Web APIs may be no longer compatible with the current version of client applications, thus break the client applications. To help the integration process, it is of significant interest to understand the challenges that are encountered by client developers. Developer forums and Stack Overflow are commonly used by client developers to seek help from fellow peers. In this paper, we mine both developer forums and Stack Overflow to find the common challenges encountered by client developers. We perform an empirical study on 32 Web APIs with a total of 92,471 discussions. To extract topics from all discussions, we apply a topic modeling technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results show that on average five dominant topics can cover at least 50% of questions regarding each Web API. We further investigate how topics evolve across Web APIs, and find five patterns. As a summary, our findings highlight a list of dominant concerns and persistent concerns for each Web API that Web API providers should pay more attention to.

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Venkatesh PK, Wang S, Zhang F, Zou Y, Hassan AE. What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow. In Reiff-Marganiec S, editor, Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2016. p. 131-138. 7557994. (Proceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2016). doi: 10.1109/ICWS.2016.25

What do client developers concern when using web APIs? An empirical study on developer forums and stack overflow

Abstract

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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Keywords

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