research-article

Understanding developers' needs on deprecation as a language feature

Authors:

Anand Ashok Sawant,

Maurício Aniche,

Arie van Deursen,

Alberto BacchelliAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 561 - 571

https://doi.org/10.1145/3180155.3180170

Published: 27 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Deprecation is a language feature that allows API producers to mark a feature as obsolete. We aim to gain a deep understanding of the needs of API producers and consumers alike regarding deprecation. To that end, we investigate why API producers deprecate features, whether they remove deprecated features, how they expect consumers to react, and what prompts an API consumer to react to deprecation. To achieve this goal we conduct semi-structured interviews with 17 third-party Java API producers and survey 170 Java developers. We observe that the current deprecation mechanism in Java and the proposal to enhance it does not address all the needs of a developer. This leads us to propose and evaluate three further enhancements to the deprecation mechanism.

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2018

1307 pages

ISBN:9781450356381

DOI:10.1145/3180155

Conference Chair:
Michel Chaudron
Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
,
General Chair:
Ivica Crnkovic
Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
,
Program Chairs:
Marsha Chechik
University of Toronto, Canada
,
Mark Harman
Facebook and University College London, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 27 May 2018

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Funding Sources

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF Project)
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)

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ICSE '18

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SIGSOFT
IEEE-CS

ICSE '18: 40th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 27 - June 3, 2018

Gothenburg, Sweden

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Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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Xiao YZuo XLu XDong JCao XBeschastnikh I(2025)Promises and perils of using Transformer-based models for SE researchNeural Networks10.1016/j.neunet.2024.107067184(107067)Online publication date: Apr-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2024.107067
Bonorden Lvan Hoorn A(2024)Detecting Usage of Deprecated Web APIs via Tracing2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA)10.1109/ICSA59870.2024.00011(23-33)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSA59870.2024.00011
Li HCogo FBezemer C(2023)An Empirical Study of Yanked Releases in the Rust Package RegistryIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2022.315214849:1(437-449)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3152148
Cogo FOliva GHassan A(2022)Deprecation of Packages and Releases in Software Ecosystems: A Case Study on NPMIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2021.305512348:7(2208-2223)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2021.3055123
Bonorden LRiebisch M(2022)API Deprecation: A Systematic Mapping Study2022 48th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA56994.2022.00076(451-458)Online publication date: Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAA56994.2022.00076
Nascimento RHora AFigueiredo E(2022)Exploring API Deprecation Evolution in JavaScript2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00031(169-173)Online publication date: Mar-2022
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