Background: Modern code review is expected to facilitate knowledge sharing: All relevant information, the collective expertise, and meta-information around the code change and its context become evident, transparent, and explicit in the corresponding code review discussion. The discussion participants can leverage this information in the following code reviews; the information diffuses through the communication network that emerges from code review. Traditional time-aggregated graphs fall short in rendering information diffusion as those models ignore the temporal order of the information exchange: Information can only be passed on if it is available in the first place. Objective: This manuscript presents a novel model based on time-varying hypergraphs for rendering information diffusion that overcomes the inherent limitations of traditional, time-aggregated graph-based models. Method: In an in-silico experiment, we simulate an information diffusion within the internal code review at Microsoft and show the empirical impact of time on a key characteristic of information diffusion: the number of reachable participants. Results: Time-aggregation significantly overestimates the paths of information diffusion available in communication networks and, thus, is neither precise nor accurate for modelling and measuring the spread of information within communication networks that emerge from code review. Conclusion: Our model overcomes the inherent limitations of traditional, static or time-aggregated, graph-based communication models and sheds the first light on information diffusion through code review. We believe that our model can serve as a foundation for understanding, measuring, managing, and improving knowledge sharing in code review in particular and information diffusion in software engineering in general.
翻译:预期现代代码审查将促进知识共享:所有相关信息、集体专门知识和围绕代码变化及其背景的元信息都变得明显、透明,并在相应的代码审查讨论中明确。讨论参与者可在以下代码审查中利用这些信息;通过代码审查产生的通信网络传播信息;传统时间汇总图在传播信息方面不足,因为这些模型忽略了信息交流的时间顺序:信息只有在首先可用时才能传递;目标:本稿以时间推移的超时图为基础,提出了一个新的模型,用以传播信息,克服传统、时间分类的图形模型的内在局限性。方法:在硅内部的测试中,我们模拟通过微软内部代码审查传播信息,并展示时间对信息传播关键特征的经验影响:可访问参与者的数量。结果:时间汇总模型大大高估了通信网络中可用的信息传播路径,因此,在模拟和衡量通信网络中信息传播的传播,从而克服了传统、时间分类的图形模型和数据基于图表的传播的内在局限性。我们通过内部代码审查,通过常规代码审查,可以克服了我们的信息流化的模型,通过常规信息流化的模型,在数据库中可以相信,通过常规信息流化的版本基础中,我们对信息流化信息流化的版本的版本的模型可以理解。