Related papers: An Empirical Study on README contents for JavaScri…

README files play an important role in providing installation-related instructions to software users and are widely used in open source software systems on platforms such as GitHub. However, these files often suffer from various…

Readme in GitHub repositories serves as a preliminary source of information, and thus helps developers in understanding about the projects, for reuse or extension. Different types of contextual and structural content, which we refer to as…

The README file serves as a critical source of information for gaining an overview and helping developers onboard to an Open Source Software (OSS) project. Yet, documentation issues persist; in particular, ``outdated'' documentation is…

Large Language Models (LLMs) often struggle with code generation tasks involving niche software libraries. Existing code generation techniques with only human-oriented documentation can fail -- even when the LLM has access to web search and…

README files play an essential role in shaping a developer's first impression of a software repository and in documenting the software project that the repository hosts. Yet, we lack a systematic understanding of the content of a typical…

READMEs shape first impressions of software projects, yet what constitutes a good README varies across audiences and contexts. Research software needs reproducibility details, while open-source libraries might prioritize quick-start guides.…

JavaScript, a scripting language employed to augment the capabilities of web browsers within web pages or browser extensions, utilizes code segments termed JavaScript inclusions. While the security aspects of JavaScript inclusions in web…

Agentic coding tools receive goals written in natural language as input, break them down into specific tasks, and write or execute the actual code with minimal human intervention. Central to this process are agent context files ("READMEs…

Developers use and contribute to repositories on GitHub. Documentation present in the repositories serves as an important source by helping developers to understand, maintain and contribute to the project. Currently, documentation in a…

The Node.js Package Manager (i.e., npm) archive repository serves as a critical part of the JavaScript community and helps support one of the largest developer ecosystems in the world. However, as a developer, selecting an appropriate npm…

Open source licenses create a legal framework that plays a crucial role in the widespread adoption of open source projects. Without a license, any source code available on the internet could not be openly (re)distributed. Although recent…

GitHub is the largest code hosting platform, with millions of repositories spanning multiple technologies. Despite this, little is known about the actual contents of GitHub's repositories in the wild. This paper presents an initial…

With the popularity of software ecosystems, the number of open source components (known as packages) has grown rapidly. Identifying high-quality and well-maintained packages from a large pool of packages to depend on is a basic and…

Motivation: Code understandability is crucial in software development, as developers spend 58% to 70% of their time reading source code. Improving it can improve productivity and reduce maintenance costs. Problem: Experimental studies often…

Software documentation captures detailed knowledge about a software product, e.g., code, technologies, and design. It plays an important role in the coordination of development teams and in conveying ideas to various stakeholders. However,…

Documenting code snippets is essential to pinpoint key areas where both developers and users should pay attention. Examples include usage examples and other Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which are especially important for…

The rapid rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has changed software development, with tools like Copilot, JetBrains AI Assistant, and others boosting developers' productivity. However, developers now spend more time reviewing code than…

Automated documentation of programming source code is a challenging task with significant practical and scientific implications for the developer community. We present a large language model (LLM)-based application that developers can use…

A software release note is one of the essential documents in the software development life cycle. The software release contains a set of information, e.g., bug fixes and security fixes. Release notes are used in different phases, e.g.,…

Advances in natural language processing have resulted in large language models (LLMs) that are capable of generating understandable and sensible written text. Recent versions of these models, such as OpenAI Codex and GPT-3, can generate…