arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 2601.14865cs.SE
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理解Stack Overflow上开发者解释的有用性

Understanding Usefulness in Developer Explanations on Stack Overflow

Leibniz Universität Hannover(汉诺威莱布尼茨大学);University of Applied Sciences | FHDW Hannover(汉诺威应用科学大学(FHDW))

Martin Obaidi, Kushtrim Qengaj, Hannah Deters, Jakob Droste, Marc Herrmann, Kurt Schneider, Jil Klünder

AI总结:

本研究通过分析Stack Overflow上的解释,探讨了影响开发者解释有用性的因素,发现内容丰富性、时间点和作者声誉等属性对感知有用性有正向影响,而情感极性影响较小。

摘要:

在软件工程(SE)和需求沟通中,解释至关重要,有助于利益相关者澄清模糊性、证明设计选择并建立共同理解。像Stack Overflow这样的在线问答论坛提供了大规模的环境,其中此类解释被生成和评估,提供了关于它们为何有效的宝贵见解。尽管先前的工作探讨了答案接受和投票行为,但关于哪些特定特征使解释真正有用仍知之甚少。结构、上下文和语言因素,如内容丰富性、时间点和情感,的相对影响仍不明确。我们分析了Stack Overflow上的3,323个问题和59,398个答案,结合文本分析和统计建模,探讨了解释属性如何与感知有用性(归一化点赞数)相关联。结构和上下文因素,特别是解释长度、代码包含、时间点和作者声誉,显示出小到中等的正向影响。情感极性的影响微乎其微,这表明清晰度和实质内容在技术沟通中优于语气。本研究提供了关于驱动开发者解释感知有用性的实证账目。它通过开放数据和复制材料提供方法论透明度,并通过将观察到的沟通模式与需求沟通原则联系起来提供概念洞察。研究结果为开发者和需求工程实践者如何创造更清晰和有效的解释提供了证据支持,可能支持开放和组织环境中的公平沟通。从需求工程的角度来看,这些决定因素可以被解释为日常需求沟通中减少模糊性和阐明理由的实用信号。

英文摘要:

Explanations are essential in software engineering (SE) and requirements communication, helping stakeholders clarify ambiguities, justify design choices, and build shared understanding. Online Q&A forums such as Stack Overflow provide large-scale settings where such explanations are produced and evaluated, offering valuable insights into what makes them effective. While prior work has explored answer acceptance and voting behavior, little is known about which specific features make explanations genuinely useful. The relative influence of structural, contextual, and linguistic factors, such as content richness, timing, and sentiment, remains unclear. We analyzed 3,323 questions and 59,398 answers from Stack Overflow, combining text analysis and statistical modeling to examine how explanation attributes relate to perceived usefulness (normalized upvotes). Structural and contextual factors, especially explanation length, code inclusion, timing, and author reputation, show small to moderate positive effects. Sentiment polarity has negligible influence, suggesting that clarity and substance outweigh tone in technical communication. This study provides an empirical account of what drives perceived usefulness in developer explanations. It contributes methodological transparency through open data and replication materials, and conceptual insight by relating observed communication patterns to principles of requirements communication. The findings offer evidence-based implications for how developers and RE practitioners can craft clearer and more effective explanations, potentially supporting fairer communication in both open and organizational contexts. From an RE perspective, these determinants can be interpreted as practical signals for ambiguity reduction and rationale articulation in day-to-day requirements communication.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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