A Tale of Two Communities: Exploring Academic References on Stack Overflow

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Huang, Run, Chattopadhyay, Souti
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Huang, Run
Chattopadhyay, Souti
author_facet Huang, Run
Chattopadhyay, Souti
contents Stack Overflow is widely recognized by software practitioners as the go-to resource for addressing technical issues and sharing practical solutions. While not typically seen as a scholarly forum, users on Stack Overflow commonly refer to academic sources in their discussions. Yet, little is known about these referenced academic works and how they intersect the needs and interests of the Stack Overflow community. To bridge this gap, we conducted an exploratory large-scale study on the landscape of academic references in Stack Overflow. Our findings reveal that Stack Overflow communities with different domains of interest engage with academic literature at varying frequencies and speeds. The contradicting patterns suggest that some disciplines may have diverged in their interests and development trajectories from the corresponding practitioner community. Finally, we discuss the potential of Stack Overflow in gauging the real-world relevance of academic research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_09856
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Tale of Two Communities: Exploring Academic References on Stack Overflow
Huang, Run
Chattopadhyay, Souti
Computers and Society
Software Engineering
Stack Overflow is widely recognized by software practitioners as the go-to resource for addressing technical issues and sharing practical solutions. While not typically seen as a scholarly forum, users on Stack Overflow commonly refer to academic sources in their discussions. Yet, little is known about these referenced academic works and how they intersect the needs and interests of the Stack Overflow community. To bridge this gap, we conducted an exploratory large-scale study on the landscape of academic references in Stack Overflow. Our findings reveal that Stack Overflow communities with different domains of interest engage with academic literature at varying frequencies and speeds. The contradicting patterns suggest that some disciplines may have diverged in their interests and development trajectories from the corresponding practitioner community. Finally, we discuss the potential of Stack Overflow in gauging the real-world relevance of academic research.
title A Tale of Two Communities: Exploring Academic References on Stack Overflow
topic Computers and Society
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09856