PySStuBs: Characterizing Single-Statement Bugs in Popular Open-Source Python Projects

Arthur Veloso Kamienski, Luisa Palechor, Abram Hindle, Cor-Paul Bezemer

2021/02/22

PySStuBs: Characterizing Single-Statement Bugs in Popular Open-Source Python Projects

Authors

Arthur Veloso Kamienski, Luisa Palechor, Abram Hindle, Cor-Paul Bezemer

Venue

Abstract

Single-statement bugs (SStuBs) can have a severe impact on developer productivity. Despite usually being simple and not offering much of a challenge to fix, these bugs may still disturb a developer’s workflow and waste precious development time. However, few studies have paid attention to these simple bugs, focusing instead on bugs of any size and complexity. In this study, we explore the occurrence of SStuBs in some of the most popular open-source Python projects on GitHub, while also characterizing their patterns and distribution. We further compare these bugs to SStuBs found in a previous study on Java Maven projects. We find that these Python projects have different SStuB patterns than the ones in Java Maven projects and identify 7 new SStuB patterns. Our results may help uncover the importance of understanding these bugs for the Python programming language, and how developers can handle them more effectively.

Bibtex

@inproceedings{kamienski2021MSR-pysstubs,
 abstract = {Single-statement bugs (SStuBs) can have a severe impact on developer productivity. Despite usually being simple and not offering much of a challenge to fix, these bugs may still disturb a developer’s workflow and waste precious development time. However, few studies have paid attention to these simple bugs, focusing instead on bugs of any size and complexity. In this study, we explore the occurrence of SStuBs in some of the most popular open-source Python projects on GitHub, while also characterizing their patterns and distribution. We further compare these bugs to SStuBs found in a previous study on Java Maven projects. We find that these Python projects have different SStuB patterns than the ones in Java Maven projects and identify 7 new SStuB patterns. Our results may help uncover the importance of understanding these bugs for the Python programming language, and how developers can handle them more effectively.},
 accepted = {2021-02-22},
 author = {Arthur Veloso Kamienski and Luisa Palechor and Abram Hindle and Cor-Paul Bezemer},
 authors = {Arthur Veloso Kamienski, Luisa Palechor, Abram Hindle, Cor-Paul Bezemer},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Mining Software Repositories},
 code = {kamienski2021MSR-pysstubs},
 date = {2021-05-18},
 funding = {NSERC Discovery},
 location = {Madrid, Spain},
 pagerange = {1--5},
 pages = {1--5},
 rate = {},
 role = {Co-Author},
 title = {PySStuBs: Characterizing Single-Statement Bugs in Popular Open-Source Python Projects},
 type = {inproceedings},
 url = {http://softwareprocess.ca/pubs/kamienski2021MSR-pysstubs.pdf},
 venue = {Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Mining Software Repositories},
 year = {2021}
}