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The reuse of uses in Smalltalk programming

Editor: Dan R. Alsen, Jr. Authors:

Mary Beth Rosson,

John M. CarrollAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 3, Issue 3

Pages 219 - 253

https://doi.org/10.1145/234526.234530

Published: 01 September 1996 Publication History

Abstract

Software reuse, a long-standing and refractory issue in software technology, has been specifically emphasized as an advantage of the object-oriented programming paradigm. We report an empirical study of expert Smalltalk programmers reusing user interface classes in small graphical applications. Our primary goal was to develop a qualitative characterization of expert reuse strategies that could be used to identify requirements for teaching and supporting reuse programming. A secondary interest was to demonstrate to these experts the Reuse View Matcher—a prototype reuse tool—and to collect some initial observations of this tool in use during reuse programming. We observed extensive “reuse of uses” in the programmers' work: they relied heavily on code in expample applications that provided an implicit specification for reuse of the target class. We called this implicit specification a “usage context.” The programmers searched for relevant usage contexts early. They repeatedly evaluated the contextualized information to develop solution plans, and they borrowed and adapted it when the sample context suited their immediate reuse goals. The process of code development was highly dynamic and incremental; analysis and implementation were tightly interleaved, frequently driven by testing and debugging. These results are considered in terms of the tradeoffs that inhere in the reuse of uses and the teaching and tool support that might improve the efficiency and accuracy of this approach to reuse.

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Cited By

Wang WBacher JIsvik ALimke ASthapit SShi YTabarsi BTran KCateté VBarnes TMartens CPrice T(2023)Investigating the Impact of On-Demand Code Examples on Novices' Open-Ended Programming ExperienceProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600141(464-475)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
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Allen JKelleher C(2023)React example viability for efficient API learning (REVEAL): A tool to help programmers utilize incompatible code examples in React.jsJournal of Computer Languages10.1016/j.cola.2023.10120175(101201)Online publication date: Jun-2023
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Index Terms

The reuse of uses in Smalltalk programming
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development techniques
      1. Reusability
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Development frameworks and environments
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types
        Object oriented languages

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Volume 3, Issue 3

Sept. 1996

97 pages

ISSN:1073-0516

EISSN:1557-7325

DOI:10.1145/234526

Editor:
Dan R. Alsen
Brigham Young Univ., Provo, UT

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1996 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 September 1996

Published in TOCHI Volume 3, Issue 3

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Cited By

Wang WBacher JIsvik ALimke ASthapit SShi YTabarsi BTran KCateté VBarnes TMartens CPrice T(2023)Investigating the Impact of On-Demand Code Examples on Novices' Open-Ended Programming ExperienceProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600141(464-475)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568813.3600141
Allen JKelleher C(2023)React example viability for efficient API learning (REVEAL): A tool to help programmers utilize incompatible code examples in React.jsJournal of Computer Languages10.1016/j.cola.2023.10120175(101201)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cola.2023.101201
Lau SSrinivasa Ragavan SMilne KBarik TSarkar AKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)TweakIt: Supporting End-User Programmers Who Transmogrify CodeProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445265(1-12)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445265
Meng MSteinhardt SSchubert A(2020)Optimizing API DocumentationProceedings of the 38th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication10.1145/3380851.3416759(1-11)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3380851.3416759
Aghayi EMassey ALaToza T(2020)Find Unique Usages: Helping Developers Understand Common Usages2020 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL/HCC50065.2020.9127285(1-8)Online publication date: Aug-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/VL/HCC50065.2020.9127285
Kuttal SSarma ABurnett MRothermel GKoeppe IShepherd B(2019)How End-User Programmers Debug Visual Web-Based Programs: An Information Foraging Theory PerspectiveJournal of Computer Languages10.1016/j.cola.2019.04.003Online publication date: Apr-2019
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cola.2019.04.003
Almeida DMurphy GWilson GHoye M(2019)Investigating whether and how software developers understand open source software licensingEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-018-9614-924:1(211-239)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2019
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Kuttal SSarma ARothermel GWang Z(2018)What happened to my application? Helping end users comprehend evolution through variation managementInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2018.06.008103(55-74)Online publication date: Nov-2018
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2018.06.008
Makady SWalker R(2018)Debugging and maintaining pragmatically reused test suitesInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2018.05.001102(6-29)Online publication date: Oct-2018
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Almeida DMurphy GWilson GHoye MScanniello GLo DSerebrenik A(2017)Do software developers understand open source licenses?Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Program Comprehension10.1109/ICPC.2017.7(1-11)Online publication date: 20-May-2017
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