Prem Devanbu's Home Page (original) (raw)

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 )

I was elected ACM Fellow in 2018. A pleasure to join my wonderful UC Davis colleagues Dan Gusfield, Nelson Max. andKwan-liu Ma who have also been thus recognized.

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 . Thanks to being very lucky with amazing students,

I have been very lucky to have wonderful graduate students, and mentees: such talented, accomplished, kind, and ethical people, all. Thanks to their achievements, I was awarded the UC Davis Graduate Advising and Mentoring award in 2023

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.

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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 ( Resthere)

CoDocBench: A Dataset for Code-Documentation Alignment in Software Maintenance (MSR 2025, Data & Tool Showcase Track, Accepted) pre-print

Enhancing Trust in llm-generated code summaries with Calibrated Confidence Scores (ACM SIGSOFT FSE 2025, Accepted) pre-print

Can LLMs Replace Manual Annotation of Software Engineering Artifacts (MSR 2025, Accepted) pre-print

RepairAgent: An autonomous, llm-based agent for program repair (ICSE 2025, Accepted) pre-print

Calibration and Correctness of Language Models, for Code (ICSE 2025, Accepted) pre-print

Vision Paper: Proof-Carrying Code COmpletions (Proceedings of the Automated Software Engineering Workshops, ASE 2024) pdf

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 TypesIEEE 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 pdfWinner, 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 Statealso has much to offer .

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## 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.

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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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