Prem Devanbu's Home Page
Prem Devanbu | |
(but are you looking for the Painter
Roma Devanbu ? or the Social Practice Artist
Josephine Devanbu ? or the Design Engineer
Frances Devanbu ? If you're looking for the Mridungam player,
or the Evangelist, sorry you're on yer own )
|
JOB SCAM ALERT
Unfortunately, some nasty characters are running a job scam using
my name. Please read the
UC Davis alert on this. I almost never contact
students by email offering jobs, unless I know them first. If you
get such an email, it's almost certainly a scam.
I was elected ACM Fellow in 2018. A pleasure to join my wonderful
UC Davis colleagues
Dan Gusfield,
Nelson Max.
and
Kwan-liu Ma
I am deeply honored to be the winner of the
The 2021 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award, (in 2022)
the
Humboldt Research Award
from the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, and (in 2024)
the IEEE Computer Society Harlan Mills Award
Journal Service:
I am pleased to serve as a Co-Chair (along with prof.
m. c. schraefel
)
of the Editorial Board of the
Communications of the ACM.
 
Previously have done hard time on the
Ed Board of several journals, including:
The Empirical Software Engineering Journal,
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering,
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology,
and the Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution,
Research and Practice
I program-chaired
ACM SIGSOFT FSE in 2006 in Portland, OR;
since then,
I co-chaired the program for
ICSE 2010 in Cape Town, with
Seb Uchitel.
I was also the
General Chair for FSE 2020 , held virtually in Sacramento,
California, during the Pandemic.
My Academic Lineage is the same as
William Cohen's , and
extends back to such luminaries as Maxwell,
Newton, Bernoulli, Poisson, Euler, and Leibniz. Those guys were smart, but
didn't wear bike helmets. Look what happened to them. Where are they now, eh? EH?
EH?
Let that be a lesson. Wear your helmet,
especially when bicycling.
Post-Diluvian Pubs ( Rest
here)
-
Automatic Semantic Augmentation of Language Model Prompts
(ICSE 2024)  
pdf
-
Better patching using LLM prompting, via Self-Consistency
(ASE NIER 2023)  
pdf
-
Large Language Models, and Simple, Stupid Bugs
(MSR 2023)  
preprint
-
Extended Source Code Pre-Trained Language Models to Summarise Decompiled Binaries
(SANER 2023) Preprint pdf
-
SYNSHINE: improved fixing of Syntax Errors". (IEEE TSE 2022)
preprint pdf
-
Few-shot training VLLMs for project-specific code-summarization. (ASE New Ideas and Emerging Results, 2022) preprint)
-
NatGen: Generative Pre-Training by "Naturalizing" source code
  ESEC/FSE 2022
-
Learning to Predict User-Defined Types
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
  2022  
pre print pdf
-
ManyTypes4TypeScript: A Comprehensive TypeScript Dataset
for Sequence-Based Type Inference
MSR 2022 Data Challenge
    pre-print
-
Multi-lingual training for software engineering
ICSE
  2022  
pre print pdf
-
Finding Inlined Functions in Optimized Binaries
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
  2021  
pre print pdf
-
Learning Type Annotations: is Big Data Enough?
ESEC/FSE Visions and Reflections
  2021  
pre print pdf
-
Learning Lenient Parsing and Typing via Indirect Supervision
Springer-Verlag Empirical Software Engineering Journal
  2021  
pre print pdf
-
Do Programmers Prefer Predictable Expressions in
Code?
Cognitive Science   2020  
pdf
-
Code to Comment "Translation": Data, Metrics, Baselining & Evaluation
Automated Software Engineering   2020  
pdf
-
Patching as Translation: the Data vs. the Metaphor
Automated Software Engineering   2020  
pdf
-
Does Surprisal Predict Code Comprehension Difficulty?
Presented at
Cognitive Science Society Conference     2020 pdf
-
A Theory of Dual-Channel Constraints
Proceedings ICSE NIER     2020 pdf
-
Status, Identity, and Language: A study of issue discussions
in GitHub
PLOS One Journal     2019
-
Whom are you going to call? determinants of @-mentions in Github discussions
Empirical Software Engineering Journal     2019
-
Test Coverage in Python Programs
MSR 2019    
pdf
-
Studying the difference between Natural and Programming Language Corpora
Empirical Software Engineering Journal   2019    
pdf
-
On the Naturalness of Proofs
Proceedings ESEC/FSE (NIER Track) 2018    
pdf
-
A Survey of Machine Learning for Big Code and Naturalness
ACM Computing Surveys, 51(4) 2018
pdf
- Mining Semantic Loop Idioms
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 2018 44(7)
pdf
-
Are Deep Neural Networks the Best Choice for Modeling Source Code
FSE 2017
pdf
-
Recovering Clear, Natural Identifiers from Obfuscated JS Names
FSE 2017
pdf
-
On the "Naturalness" of Buggy Code
ICSE 2016
pdf
-
Belief & Evidence in Empirical Software ENgineering
ICSE 2016
pdf
-
The Sky is Not the Limit: Multitasking Across GitHub Projects
ICSE 2016
pdf
-
Quality and Productivity Outcomes Relating to Continuous Integration in GitHub
FSE 2015    
pdf
-
Developer Onboarding in GitHub: the Role of Prior Social Links and Language Experience
FSE 2015    
pdf
-
CACHECA: A Cache Language Model Based Code Suggestion Tool.
ICSE 2015 Demonstration Track
pdf  
Code  
-
Gender and Tenure Diversity in Github Teams.
CHI 2015
pdf
-
Assert Use in GitHub Projects,
ICSE 2015  
pdf  
IMPORTANT, NOTE We replicated this study, using a different experimental methodology, and got different
results
short pdf of replication
-
New Initiative: Naturalness of Software
ICSE 2015 NIER Track
pdf
Winner, Best Paper Award
-
A Large Scale Study of Programming Languages and Code Quality in Github.
The Version currently in ACM DL is out of date, and has been revised, see
this pdf version for errata/details.
-
On the Localness of Software
FSE 2014    
pdf  
Code
- The Plastic Surgery Hypothesis
FSE 2014    
-
Panning Requirement Nuggets in Stream of Software Maintenance Tickets
FSE 2014    
-
Focus-Shifting Patterns of OSS Developers and Their Congruence with Call Graphs
FSE 2014    
-
Comparing Static bug finders and Statistical defect prediction
ICSE 2014    
pdf    
DATA    
-
How Social Q&A Sites are Changing Knowledge Sharing in Open Source Software Communities
CSCW 2014    
-
Using and Asking: APIs Used in the Android Market and Asked About in StackOverflow
SocInfo2013    
pdf
-
Sample Size vs. Bias in Defect Prediction,
ESEC/FSE 2013
    pdf    
-
Asking for (and about) Permissions Used by Android Apps
MSR 2013
-
Dual Ecological Measures of Focus in Software Development,
ICSE 2013
    pdf    
Winner, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award
-
How, and Why Process Metrics are Better,
ICSE 2013
    pdf    
-
To what extent could we detect field defects?
  ASE 2012
    pdf    
-
When Would This Bug Get Reported? ,
ICSM 2012
    pdf    
-
MIC Check: A Correlation Tactic for ESE Data,
MSR 2012
    pdf    
-
On the "Naturalness" of software,
Appeared in ICSE 2012
    pdf (Expanded Version!)    
-
Recalling the Imprecision of Cross-Project Defect Prediction>
Appeared in FSE 2012,
pdf
-
Cohesive and Isolated Development with Branches,
Appeared in FASE 2012
-
Clones: what is that smell?
l Journal on Empirical Software Engineering,
    pdf    
-
Got Issues? Do New Features and Code Improvements Affect Defects?
WCRE 11
    pdf    
-
Ecological Inference in Empirical Software Engineering
ASE 2011
    pdf    
Winner, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper and ASE 2011 Best Paper Awards.
-
BugCache for Inspections : Hit or Miss?
SIGSOFT FSE 2011
    pdf     Nominee, ACM Distinguished Paper Award.
-
Don't Touch My Code! Examining the Effects of Ownership on Software Quality
SIGSOFT FSE 2011
    pdf
-
A Simpler model of software readability
MSR 2011
    pdf
-
Operating System Compatibility Analysis of Eclipse and Netbeans Based on Bug Data
MSR 2011 Mining Challenge
-
Ownership, Experience and Defects: a fine-grained study of Authorship
ICSE 2011
    pdf
-
An Empirical Study on the Influence of Pattern Roles on Change-Proneness
Empirical Software Engineering Journal
Springer-Verlag, 2011.
    pdf
-
The missing links: bugs and bug-fix commits
SIGSOFT FSE 2010
    pdf
-
Validity of Network Analyses in Open Source Projects.
MSR 2010
    pdf
-
Clones: What is that Smell?
MSR 2010
    pdf
Winner, Best Paper Award, MSR 2010
-
Thex: Mining Metapatterns in Java.
MSR 2010
    pdf
-
Does Distributed Development Affect Software Quality?
An Empirical Case Study of Windows Vista,
Research Highlights, CACM, August, 2009. Revised version of ICSE 2009 paper (see below).
-
Putting it All Together: Using Socio-Technical Networks to Predict Failures
ISSRE 2009.
-
Fair and Balanced? Bias in bug-fix Datasets"
SIGSOFT FSE 2009
    pdf
-
Promises and Perils of Mining Git
MSR 2009
pdf
-
Modeling and verifying a broad array of network properties
Europhysics Letters (EPL), 2009
pdf
-
Does Distributed Development Affect Software Quality? An Empirical Case Study
of Windows Vista,
ICSE 2009
pdf
Winner, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished paper award
-
Structure and Dynamics of Research Collaboration in Computer Science
SIAM International Conference on Data Mining 2009 pdf
- Instant Multi-Tier Web Applications without Tears.
Indian Software Engineering Conference 2009 (acceptance rate 13%)
pdf
- Community Structure in Open-source Developer Social networks.
ACM SIGSOFT FSE 2008 pdf
- Scalable, Flexible
Peephole Pretty-Printing. Science of Computer Programming
2008. The
pdf
- Recommending Random Walks
( SIGSOFT FSE 2007 pdf )
Nominee, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished paper award
- Immigration
in Open Source projects. (MSR 2007
pdf )
- Aspect-oriented Layer Bypassing in Middleware ( AOSD 2007
pdf)
-
Mining Email Social Networks MSR 2006
pdf
-
Static checking of dynamically generated queries in database applications
( ICSE 2004 pdf).
Winner, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished
paper
award.
- Dynamically Negotiating QoS Features: The GlueQoS Project (
ICSE
2004 pdf)
- Text visualizations at interactive speeds: Peephole
Pretty-Printing (Project page)
- Distributed adaptations for distributed objects: The DADO project
( ICSE 2003 pdf).
Nominee, ACM SIGSOFT
Distinguished Paper
award.)
-
Teaching & Advising
ECS
30, Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving
ECS
160, Undergraduate Software Engineering
ECS
260 Graduate Software Engineering.
ECS 289
Graduate Seminar in Open Source Software Engineering
I'm very lucky to have some great graduate students and Post-Docs.
Brief Bio
I started off in Industrial software development,
first at
Perkin-Elmer;
then I worked at
Bell Labs, first in software development and then in research, at
Murray Hill, NJ; with the big travestyture, I went to AT&T Labs
Research in Florham Park. I have been at UC Davis since
late 1997. My undergraduate education was at IIT, Madras in India;
my doctoral work was done under Prof.
Borgida at Rutgers
University in the Garden
State, which is a
lovely
place, actually; although the Golden State
also has much to offer .
Voice:
530
752 7324 Fax: 530 752 4767 Email:
Personal
My spouse, Roma
Devanbu, is an artist and art educator whose work draws
on different cultures, and explores the interplay between the spiritual
and the temporal. Check out her work on her own web site , which
is really like a piece of cake for your eyes. .
In my "abundant" spare time, I worry a lot. About everything. e.g., my work, my
employer, fire, floods, war, bad guys, bad girls, financial derivatives,
the environment, and my kids. Not necessarily in that order. So
I need jokes in my life. So tell me jokes. Anytime, anywhere. Even bad ones.
If you are a foreign student interested in pursuing graduate studies at
UC Davis under my supervision, please a) look
over my papers, see if my research interests you b) apply for the
graduate program
c) contact me when you're admitted. The bad news is that we
accept few foreign students. The good news is that your chances are
good if you're from
a reputed institution in your country,
or have publications in
international conferences/journals, or have very good scores on
your
GREs. etc. If you email me, use the following text in the
first
line: "Blue bottles with red stoppers are found in orange boxes".
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