Announcing the Final Examination of Abduljaleel Al Rubaye for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The proliferation of open-source software platforms has led to online communities where developers collaborate, showcase projects, and exchange ideas. GitHub, a prominent platform, provides space for hosting code, collaborative ventures, and meaningful dialogues. This dissertation explores software development communities on GitHub, focusing on innovation diffusion, repository popularity dynamics, code quality enhancement, and user commenting behaviors. Our initial effort involves proposing a popularity-based model for GitHub's innovation diffusion. We analyze a repository's popularity influence on knowledge transfer and the adoption of innovative practices using a dataset of GitHub fork events. The dissertation offers insights into the impact of social factors, especially popularity, on innovation diffusion. We introduce a novel approach, the Weighted Trend Popularity Score (WTPS), computing a popularity score derived from historical repository indicators. WTPS's accuracy as a comprehensive popularity indicator is assessed, emphasizing the significance of a singular metric. Delving into code quality on GitHub, we examine it through the lens of code reviews. The analysis focuses on understanding the code review process and proposes a regularity-based approach to enhance code quality by enforcing coding standards. In the concluding phase, we investigate communication intricacies within technology-related online communities. Attention is given to the impact of user popularity on communication, explored through comment timelines and communities. To contextualize our findings, we compare behavioral patterns of GitHub developers and users on platforms like Reddit and Stack Overflow.
Committee in Charge:
Gita Sukthankar, Chair, Computer Science
Ivan Garibay, Associate Professor, Industrial Engineering and Management Systems at University of Central Florida
Ladislau Boloni, Professor of Computer Science, University of Central Florida
Samarth Swarup, Research Associate Professor at University of Virginia