TY - GEN
T1 - An Industry Case Study on Adoption of AI-based Programming Assistants
AU - Davila, Nicole
AU - Wiese, Igor
AU - Steinmacher, Igor
AU - Lucio Da Silva, Lucas
AU - Kawamoto, Andre
AU - Favaro, Gilson Jose Peres
AU - Nunes, Ingrid
N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2024 held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2024/4/14
Y1 - 2024/4/14
N2 - Programming assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, have gained worldwide popularity recently. Studies in software development have explored the adoption of these tools, investigating their characteristics and impacts and how practitioners interact and perceive them. To contribute to this growing body of knowledge, in this study, we aim to explore the adoption of AI-based programming assistants in the Brazilian industry. More specifically, we aim to understand how practitioners of a particular Brazilian agroindustry-related company perceive and use AI-based tools to develop software. Using an online survey, we collected and analyzed 72 responses from employees of the studied company. Our findings suggest that practitioners mainly adopt ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, interacting with these tools to accelerate online searching, typing, and syntax recall. A recurrent difficulty is the lack of context in the suggestions provided by these tools, but participants work on detailed descriptions to contextualize and cope with this challenge. Among the reasons for not using AI-based tools, the most influential is that participants use a commercial programming language, i.e., Uniface, which these tools lack examples. Our results provide insights into the state of the practice related to AI-based programming assistants and discuss implications for practitioners and researchers.
AB - Programming assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, have gained worldwide popularity recently. Studies in software development have explored the adoption of these tools, investigating their characteristics and impacts and how practitioners interact and perceive them. To contribute to this growing body of knowledge, in this study, we aim to explore the adoption of AI-based programming assistants in the Brazilian industry. More specifically, we aim to understand how practitioners of a particular Brazilian agroindustry-related company perceive and use AI-based tools to develop software. Using an online survey, we collected and analyzed 72 responses from employees of the studied company. Our findings suggest that practitioners mainly adopt ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, interacting with these tools to accelerate online searching, typing, and syntax recall. A recurrent difficulty is the lack of context in the suggestions provided by these tools, but participants work on detailed descriptions to contextualize and cope with this challenge. Among the reasons for not using AI-based tools, the most influential is that participants use a commercial programming language, i.e., Uniface, which these tools lack examples. Our results provide insights into the state of the practice related to AI-based programming assistants and discuss implications for practitioners and researchers.
KW - ChatGPT
KW - artificial intelligence
KW - generative AI
KW - industry case study
KW - software development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85195257600&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85195257600&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3639477.3643648
DO - 10.1145/3639477.3643648
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 92
EP - 102
BT - Proceedings - 2024 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 2024 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results, ICSE-SEIP 2024
Y2 - 14 April 2024 through 20 April 2024
ER -