Why are features deprecated? An investigation into the motivation behind deprecation

Anand Ashok Sawant, Guangzhe Huang, Gabriel Vilen, Stefan Stojkovski, Alberto Bacchelli

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
288 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In this study, we investigate why API producers deprecate features. Previous work has shown us that knowing the rationale behind deprecation of an API aids a consumer in deciding to react, thus hinting at a diversity of deprecation reasons. We manually analyze the Javadoc of 374 deprecated methods pertaining four mainstream Java APIs to see whether the reason behind deprecation is mentioned. We find that understanding the rationale from just the Javadoc is insufficient; hence we add other data sources such as the source code, issue tracker data and commit history. We observe 12 reasons that trigger API producers to deprecate a feature. We evaluate an automated approach to classify these motivations.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2018
EditorsL. O'Conner
Place of PublicationLos Alamitos, CA
PublisherIEEE
Pages13-24
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-5386-7870-1
ISBN (Print)978-1-5386-7871-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2018
EventICSME 2018: 34th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution - Madrid, Spain
Duration: 23 Sept 201829 Sept 2018
Conference number: 34
https://icsme2018.github.io/

Conference

ConferenceICSME 2018
Country/TerritorySpain
CityMadrid
Period23/09/1829/09/18
Internet address

Bibliographical note

Accepted author manuscript

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