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Article
How practitioners perceive automated bug report management techniques
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
  • Weiqin ZOU, Nanjing University
  • David LO, Singapore Management University
  • Zhenyu CHEN, Nanjing University
  • Xin XIA, Monash University
  • Yang FENG, University of California, Irvine
  • Baowen XU, Nanjing University
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
8-2020
Abstract

Bug reports play an important role in the process of debugging and fixing bugs. To reduce the burden of bug report managers and facilitate the process of bug fixing, a great amount of software engineering research has been invested into automated bug report management techniques. However, the verdict is still open whether such techniques are actually required and applicable outside of the theoretical research domain. To fill this gap, in this paper, we conducted a survey among 327 practitioners to gain their insights into various categories of automated bug report management techniques. Specifically, in the survey, we asked them to rate the importance of such techniques and provide the rationales of their ratings. To get deeper insight into practitioners' perspective, we conducted follow-up interviews with 25 interviewees selected from the survey respondents. Through the survey and the interviews, we gained a better understanding of the perceived usefulness (or its lack) of different categories of automated bug report management techniques. Based on the survey and interview results, we summarized some potential research directions in developing techniques to help developers better manage bug reports.

Keywords
  • Bug Report,
  • Developer Perception,
  • Computer bugs,
  • Maintenance engineering,
  • Software,
  • Interviews,
  • Software engineering
Identifier
10.1109/TSE.2018.2870414
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2018.2870414
Citation Information
Weiqin ZOU, David LO, Zhenyu CHEN, Xin XIA, et al.. "How practitioners perceive automated bug report management techniques" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering Vol. 46 Iss. 8 (2020) p. 836 - 862 ISSN: 0098-5589
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_lo/268/