On-Demand Documentation via Code Examples

Speaker: Mathieu Nassif, McGill University

Abstract: Documentation is an essential part of effective software development, but creating high-quality documents is a complex challenge. Beyond the extent and accuracy of a document’s content, the organization and presentation of the information play an important role in helping readers gain the knowledge they need from a document. While many techniques exist that can generate more documentation content than anyone can read, it is important to also study and improve the user interface of documents to ensure that developers can benefit from their content. In this talk, I will present three directions to improve the interaction between developers and documents. First, I will present the extraction of abstract concepts to help developers identify and address gaps in their background before reading documents that may require technical knowledge. Second, I will discuss variations in the design of API tutorials created by professionals, to explore the design space and the impact of different decisions when creating documents for various audiences. Finally, I will introduce Casdoc, a novel documentation presentation format for API tutorials focused on code examples. I will also present the results of two studies with Casdoc that revealed recurrent navigation patterns, which can inform design guidelines for the presentation of developer documentation.

Biography: Mathiew Nassif completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at McGill University, under the supervision of Prof. Martin P. Robillard in the Software Technology Lab. His thesis focused on the presentation of software documentation, particularly API usage tutorials. Part of his work included the development of Casdoc, a documentation format oriented around code examples. Casdoc documents are available online. Mr Nassif received a M.Sc. in Computer Science from McGill University in 2018. HIs thesis explored a flexible approach to embed documentation directly in source code to reduce the redundancy of information in software systems while improving documentation quality. He received a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Université de Montréal in 2016.

Chair: Marco Raglianti

*************************
In February 2019, the Software Institute started its SI Seminar Series. Every Thursday afternoon, a researcher of the Institute will publicly give a short talk on a software engineering argument of their choice. Examples include, but are not limited to novel interesting papers, seminal papers, personal research overview, discussion of preliminary research ideas, tutorials, and small experiments.
On our YouTube playlist you can watch some of the past seminars. On the SI website you can find more details on the next seminar, the upcoming seminars, and an archive of the past speakers.