Mica: A Web-Search Tool for Finding API Components and Examples

Because software libraries are numerous and large, learning how to use them is a common and problematic task for experienced programmers and novices alike. Internet search engines such as Google have emerged as important resources to help programmers successfully use APIs. However, observations of programmers using web search have revealed problems and inefficiencies in their use. We present a new prototype search tool called Mica that augments standard web search results to help programmers find the right API classes and methods given a description of the desired functionality, and help programmers find examples when they already know which methods to use. Mica works by using the Google Web APIs to find relevant pages, and then analyzing the content of those pages to extract the most relevant programming terms and to classify the type of each result.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: VL
• Authors: Jeffrey Stylos, Brad A. Myers
• Keywords: Experienced Programmers, Languages, Programmers, VL 2006, Web Search