论文标题
开发人员讨论主题有关低代码软件开发平台的采用和障碍
Developer Discussion Topics on the Adoption and Barriers of Low Code Software Development Platforms
论文作者
论文摘要
低代码软件开发（LCSD）是一种新兴的方法，可以使来自不同背景的软件从业人员的应用程序开发民主化。 LCSD平台通过拖放接口和手工制作最少的编程来促进快速应用开发。由于它是一个相对较新的范式，因此在采用LCSD平台时研究开发人员的困难至关重要。软件工程师经常使用在线开发人员论坛堆叠溢出（SO）来寻求有关技术问题的帮助。我们观察到越来越多的LCSD相关柱子。本文介绍了大约33K的经验研究，因此帖子包含38个流行的LCSD平台的讨论。我们使用主题建模来确定这些帖子中讨论的主题。此外，我们研究了这些主题如何分布在敏捷软件开发生命周期（SDLC）的各个阶段，以及LCSD的哪一部分是最受欢迎和最具挑战性的部分。我们的研究提供了一些有趣的发现。首先，我们找到40个LCSD主题，分为五个类别：应用程序自定义，数据库和文件管理，平台采用，平台维护和第三方API集成。其次，尽管应用程序自定义（30 \％）和数据存储（25 \％）\ rev {topic}类别是最常见的，但近年来，与其他几个类别有关的询问（例如，平台采用\ Rev {topic}类别）在近年来引起了极大的关注。第三，所有主题类别都在迅速发展，尤其是在Covid-19大流行期间。这项研究的发现对所有三种LCSD利益相关者都有影响：LCSD平台供应商，LCSD开发人员/从业者，研究人员和教育工作者。研究人员和LCSD平台供应商可以协作以改善LCSD的不同方面，例如更好的基于教程的文档，测试和DEVOPS支持。
Low-code software development (LCSD) is an emerging approach to democratize application development for software practitioners from diverse backgrounds. LCSD platforms promote rapid application development with a drag-and-drop interface and minimal programming by hand. As it is a relatively new paradigm, it is vital to study developers' difficulties when adopting LCSD platforms. Software engineers frequently use the online developer forum Stack Overflow (SO) to seek assistance with technical issues. We observe a growing body of LCSD-related posts in SO. This paper presents an empirical study of around 33K SO posts containing discussions of 38 popular LCSD platforms. We use Topic Modeling to determine the topics discussed in those posts. Additionally, we examine how these topics are spread across the various phases of the agile software development life cycle (SDLC) and which part of LCSD is the most popular and challenging. Our study offers several interesting findings. First, we find 40 LCSD topics that we group into five categories: Application Customization, Database, and File Management, Platform Adoption, Platform Maintenance, and Third-party API Integration. Second, while the Application Customization (30\%) and Data Storage (25\%) \rev{topic} categories are the most common, inquiries relating to several other categories (e.g., the Platform Adoption \rev{topic} category) have gained considerable attention in recent years. Third, all topic categories are evolving rapidly, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings of this study have implications for all three LCSD stakeholders: LCSD platform vendors, LCSD developers/practitioners, Researchers, and Educators. Researchers and LCSD platform vendors can collaborate to improve different aspects of LCSD, such as better tutorial-based documentation, testing, and DevOps support.
