AmAssist: In-IDE ambient search of online programming resources

Hongwei Li*, Xuejiao Zhao, Zhenchang Xing, Lingfeng Bao, Xin Peng, Dongjing Gao, Wenyun Zhao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Developers work in the IDE, but search online resources in the web browser. The separation of the working and search context often cause the ignorance of the working context during online search. Several tools have been proposed to integrate the web browser into the IDE so that developers can search and use online resources directly in the IDE. These tools enable only the shallow integration of the web browser and the IDE. Some tools allow the developer to augment search queries with program entities in the current snapshot of the code. In this paper, we present an in-IDE ambient search agent to bridge the separation of the developer's working context and search context. Our approach considers the developers' working context in the IDE as a time-series stream of programming event observed from the developer's interaction with the IDE over time. It supports the deeper integration of the working context in the entire search process from query formulation, custom search, to search results refinement and representation. We have implemented our ambient search agent and integrate it into the Eclipse IDE. We conducted a user study to evaluate our approach and the tool support. Our evaluation shows that our ambient search agent can better aid developers in searching and using online programming resources while working in the IDE.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2015 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering, SANER 2015 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages390-398
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781479984695
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Apr 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering, SANER 2015 - Montreal, Canada
Duration: 2 Mar 20156 Mar 2015

Publication series

Name2015 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering, SANER 2015 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering, SANER 2015
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period2/03/156/03/15

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