An Exploratory Study of API Usage Examples on the Web

Usage examples are helpful for programmers learning to use APIs from third-party frameworks or libraries. There are lots of usage examples scattered in web pages on the Web, such as tutorials, blogs, and forums. A few researches have proposed approaches to leveraging these usage examples to improve programming. However, due to the lack of comprehensive understanding on the current situation of usage examples on the web, the work is still at the very beginning. Many concerns are reserved, for instance, how many usage examples can be found on the Web? how well do such examples support programmers on earth? what factors have impact on these examples´ usability? In this paper, we conducted an exploratory study of usage examples on the web, including their distribution, characteristics like content style, correctness, and complexity, as well as their correlations. Through the study, we obtain some insight of how to facilitate utilization of usage examples on the web and what mechanisms could be provided. Possible research directions and problems are proposed at the end.