论文标题
对软件开发机器人的实证研究 - 从从业者的角度来看的特征和挑战
An Empirical Study of Bots in Software Development -- Characteristics and Challenges from a Practitioner's Perspective
论文作者
论文摘要
软件工程机器人 - 处理繁琐任务的自动化工具 - 越来越多地由工业和开源项目使用，以提高开发人员的生产率。由于缺乏对软件工程机器人（Devbot）的实际共识，哪些特征与其他工具区分开来，以及与DevBot使用相关的哪些好处和挑战。在本文中，我们报告了对工业实践中Devbot使用的混合方法实证研究。我们报告了采访21的发现并总共调查了111名开发人员。我们在Devbot用户中确定了三种不同的角色（专注于自治，聊天界面和“智能”），每个角色都对Devbot是什么定义，开发人员为什么使用它们以及与之斗争的内容有不同的定义。我们得出的结论是，未来的Devbot研究应将其工作置于我们的框架中，以清楚地确定工作目标的哪种类型以及从业人员可以期望的优势。此外，我们发现目前缺乏超越简单自动化工具或聊天接口的通用“智能”机器人。正如我们已经看到的那样，这是有问题的，如果有的话，如果有的话，可以对使用它们的项目产生变革性的影响。
Software engineering bots - automated tools that handle tedious tasks - are increasingly used by industrial and open source projects to improve developer productivity. Current research in this area is held back by a lack of consensus of what software engineering bots (DevBots) actually are, what characteristics distinguish them from other tools, and what benefits and challenges are associated with DevBot usage. In this paper we report on a mixed-method empirical study of DevBot usage in industrial practice. We report on findings from interviewing 21 and surveying a total of 111 developers. We identify three different personas among DevBot users (focusing on autonomy, chat interfaces, and "smartness"), each with different definitions of what a DevBot is, why developers use them, and what they struggle with. We conclude that future DevBot research should situate their work within our framework, to clearly identify what type of bot the work targets, and what advantages practitioners can expect. Further, we find that there currently is a lack of general purpose "smart" bots that go beyond simple automation tools or chat interfaces. This is problematic, as we have seen that such bots, if available, can have a transformative effect on the projects that use them.
