Software Problems That Motivate Web Searches - Finding Source Code on the Web for Remix and Reuse - page 266

13.7 Conclusion
In summary, we analyzed Web searches using an opportunistic problem solving
approach to find out what motivates developers to look for information on the Web.
We found that developers mainly perform searches to opportunistically solve soft-
ware development problems (82% of Web searches). Opportunistic searches are ad
hoc and are done to remember syntax details, clarify implementation details or fix
bugs, and learn new concepts. On the other hand, non-opportunistic searches (only
18% of Web searches) are done following a systematic process and are performed to
find open source projects. Using opportunistic problem solving lenses we changed
the level of granularity to understand the motivation behind Web searches from
search targets to software development problems. This change on focus allow us
to clearly understand that what motivates Web searches are software development
problems and they define the search targets developers are looking for. Using the
opportunistic approach also help us understand that searches for code snippets and
searches for open source projects are two different problems that should be investi-
gated separately.
Acknowledgements Thank you to all the participants and supporters at Novatronic, “Health Con-
nection,” and AppFolio. This research was possible due to their generosity in sharing their time
and work with us. This material is based upon work supported by the NSF under Grant No. IIS-
0846034. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the authors and do not necessary reflect the views of the NSF.
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