Recommendation Systems for Software Engineering

Software development can be challenging because of the large information spaces that developers must navigate. Without assistance, developers can become bogged down and spend a disproportionate amount of their time seeking information at the expense of other value-producing tasks. Recommendation systems for software engineering (RSSEs) are software tools that can assist developers with a wide range of activities, from reusing code to writing effective bug reports. The authors provide an overview of recommendation systems for software engineering: what they are, what they can do for developers, and what they might do in the future.