Taking development workflow to the next level

Programming workflow can be disturbed by unnecessary long phases of debugging and web searches for the needed information. To reduce the duration of such phases, Flowr aims at bringing the right information directly to the developer at the right time. This helps increase developer efficiency and also reduces developer stress caused by many cognitive context switches between developing and searching for problem solutions. Flowr analyzes design- and runtime exceptions and searches for solutions and strategies in different data sources. When an exception is thrown, it is isolated from surrounding output and split into parts like type, file, and line. Irrelevant or user-specific information, such as local paths and common words are excluded. The exception text is then scanned for more interesting tokens, such as library versions or technical details. After pre-processing, the exception is fed into several data sources via their respective APIs. Flowr then ranks the results of these queries internally, taking user feedback into account. It then comprises a distraction-free result page, sorted by relevance. This ranked list is shown to the developer who then decides which solution matches the problem best and rates results based on their usefulness. The client can also be used with mobile devices, enabling developers e.g. to work on their laptops and view solutions on their tablets.

Implementation

General

Flowr is written in server-side Javascript and contains plug-ins for Sublime Text 3 and Eclipse. It is based on a modular concept, which allows interchangeability in support of both programming languages and data sources. Currently supported are Python, Java, and Ruby. The server component itself provides a well-documented API and the possibility to add or edit modules to support languages, programming paradigms or specific dialects.

Second Screen

As learned from the interviews, most developers use two screens and differentiate between a main screen for coding and an assistive screen for documentation. Therefore we decided to place the results on the assistive screen or even an additional device like a tablet.

Server API

The backend of flower can be queried via GET parameters and returns the result via JSON. This allows for easy integration of Flowr into other applications. 

Database

Flowr incorporates several data sources, such as StackOverflow, gitHub Issues and results from the graphdatabase of analyzeD. Flowr allows users to upvote the entries they found useful to improve future rankings. Connecting and integrating these pieces of information is likely to yield an additional advantage concering the ranking and further solution details in the future.