Romain Robbes — Info — Research — Teaching — Service

Research

My research interests lie in software engineering, more specifically in the fields of software maintenance, empirical software engineering and mining software repositories. I currently follow two main research tracks: (1) mining of fine-grained developer traces to understand and improve the low-level aspects of the developement process, and (2) mining of complete software ecosystems, to understand and improve the dynamics of entire software development communities. I also have additional interests in programming languages and environments, and code profiling.

My publications are listed below. You may also want to have a look at my profile on DBLP, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Search, or the ACM. These sites may provide more information (including links to pdfs or bibtex entries), but may be out of date in some aspects.

Journals

  1. Evaluating defect prediction approaches: a benchmark and an extensive comparison
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — EMSE, in press
    Empirical Software Engineering (Springer)
  2. SPY: A Flexible Code Profiling Framework
    A. Bergel, F. Bañados, R. Robbes, D Röthlisberger — COMLAN, in press
    Computer Languages, Systems & Structures (Elsevier)
  3. Execution profiling blueprints
    A. Bergel, F. Bañados, R. Robbes, W. Binder — SPE, in press
    Software: Practice and Experience (Wiley)
  4. Refining code ownership with synchronous changes
    L. Hattori, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — EMSE, in press
    Empirical Software Engineering (Springer)
  5. On porting software visualization tools to the web
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, M. Lungu, R. Robbes — STTT 2011
    Software Tools and Technology Transfer, Volume 13, Number 2, pp 181–200 (Springer)
  6. Improving code completion with program history
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ASE 2010
    Automated Software Engineering, Volume 17, Number 2, pp 181–212, (Springer)
  7. The small project observatory: Visualizing software ecosystems
    M. Lungu, M. Lanza, T. Girba, R. Robbes — SCP 2010
    Science of Computer Programming, Volume 75, Number 4, pp 264–275 (Elsevier)
  8. A Change-Based Approach to Software Evolution
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ENTCS 2007
    Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 166, pp 93–109 (Elsevier)

Top conferences and awards

  1. How Developers Use the Dynamic Features of Programming Languages: the Case of Smalltalk
    O. Callau, R. Robbes, E. Tanter, D. Röthlisberger — MSR 2011, best paper
    8th ACM/IEEE Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, pp 23–32
  2. Software Systems as Cities: A Controlled Experiment
    R. Wettel, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — ICSE 2011, 14%
    33rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, pp 551–560
  3. Linking emails and source code artifacts
    A. Bacchelli, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — ICSE 2010, 13%.
    32nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, pp 375–384
  4. Benchmarking Lightweight Techniques to Link E-Mails and Source Code
    A. Bacchelli, M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — WCRE 2009, best paper
    16th IEEE Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, pp 205–214
  5. How Program History Can Improve Code Completion
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ASE 2008, 12%
    23rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, pp 317–326

Conferences

  1. Enabling Program Comprehension through a Visual Object-focused Development Environment
    F. Olivero, M. Lanza, M. D’Ambros, R. Robbes — VL/HCC 2011
    27th IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, to appear
  2. Language-Independent Clone Detection Applied to Plagiarism Detection
    R. Brixtel, M. Fontaine, B. Lesner, C. Bazin, R. Robbes — SCAM 2010
    10th IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, pp 77–86
  3. Visualizing Dynamic Metrics with Profiling Blueprints
    A. Bergel, R. Robbes, W. Binder — TOOLS 2010
    48th International Conference on Objects, Models, Components, Patterns, pp 291–309
  4. Replaying IDE Interactions to Evaluate and Improve Change Prediction Approaches
    R. Robbes, D. Pollet, M. Lanza — MSR 2010
    7th ACM/IEEE Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, pp 161–170
  5. An extensive comparison of bug prediction approaches
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — MSR 2010
    7th ACM/IEEE Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, pp 31–41
  6. On the Relationship Between Change Coupling and Software Defects
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — WCRE 2009
    16th IEEE Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, pp 135–144
  7. Promises and Perils of Porting Software Visualization Tools to the Web
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lungu, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — WSE 2009
    11th IEEE International Symposium on Web Systems Evolution, pp 109–118
  8. Example-based Program Transformation
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — MODELS 2008
    11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering, Languages, and Systems, pp 174–188
  9. Characterizing and Understanding Development Sessions
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ICPC 2007
    15th International Conference on Program Comprehension, pp 155–164
  10. An Approach to Software Evolution Based on Semantic Changes
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza, M. Lungu — FASE 2007
    10th Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, pp 27–41
  11. Microprints: A Pixel-Based, Semantically Rich Visualization of Methods
    R. Robbes, S. Ducasse, M. Lanza — ESUG 2005
    13th International Smalltalk Conference, pp 172–188
  12. An Aspect-Based Multi-Agent System
    R. Robbes, N. Bouraqadi, S. Stinckwich — ESUG 2004
    12th International Smalltalk Conference, pp 65–85

Short conference papers and tool demos

  1. Gaucho: Programming == Modeling
    F. Olivero, M. Lanza, M. D’Ambros, R. Robbes — ECOOP 2011
    25th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming
  2. A Study of Ripple Effects in Software Ecosystems
    R. Robbes, M. Lungu — ICSE NIER 2011
    33rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, pp 904–907
  3. Requirements Engineering Practices in Very Small Software Enterprises: A Diagnostic Study
    A. Quispe, M. Marques, L. Silvestre, S. Ochoa, R. Robbes — SCCC 2010
    29th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society, pp 81–87
  4. Recovering inter-project dependencies in software ecosystems
    M. Lungu, R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ASE 2010
    25th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, pp 309–312
  5. Supporting Task-Oriented Navigation in IDEs with Configurable HeatMaps
    D. Rothlisberger, O. Nierstrasz, S. Ducasse, D. Pollet, R. Robbes — ICPC 2009
    17th International Conference on Program Comprehension, pp 253–257
  6. A Teamwork-Based Approach to Programming Fundamentals with Scheme, Smalltalk and Java
    M. Lanza, A. Murphy, R. Robbes, M. Lungu, P. Bonzini — ICSE 2008
    30th International Conference on Software Engineering, Education Track, pp. 787 - 790
  7. SpyWare: A Change-Aware Development Toolset
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — ICSE 2008
    30th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, pp 847–850
  8. Logical Coupling Based on Fine-grained Change Information
    R. Robbes, D. Pollet, M. Lanza — WCRE 2008
    15th IEEE Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, pp 42–46

Workshop papers

  1. Spy: A flexible and Agile Code Profiling Framework
    A. Bergel, F. Bañados, R. Robbes, D. Röthlisberger — IWST 2010
    2nd International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies, pp 21–28
  2. Commit 2.0
    M. D’Ambros, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — Web2SE 2010
    1st International Workshop on Web 2.0 for Software Engineering, pp. 14–19
  3. Lumiere : An Infrastructure for Producing 3D Applications in Smalltalk
    F. Olivero, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — Famoosr 2009
    3rd International Workshop on FAMIX and Moose in Reengineering, pp 8–11
  4. Lumiere : a Novel Framework for Rendering 3D graphics in Smalltalk
    F. Olivero, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — ISWT 2009
    1st International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies, pp 20–28
  5. On the Evaluation of Recommender Systems with Recorded Interactions
    R. Robbes — SUITE 2009
    1st ICSE Workshop on Search-Driven Development, Users, Infrastructure, Tools, and Evaluation, pp 45–48
  6. The “Extract Refactoring” Refactoring
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — WRT 2007
    1st International Workshop on Refactoring Tools, pp 29–30
  7. Mining a Change-Based Software Repository
    R. Robbes — MSR 2007
    4th International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories, pp 15–23
  8. Change-Based Software Evolution
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — EVOL 2006
    2nd International ERCIM Workshop on Software Evolution, pp 159–164
  9. Versioning Systems for Evolution Research
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — IWPSE 2005
    8th International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution, pp 155–164
  10. Multi-level Method Understanding with Microprints
    S. Ducasse, M. Lanza, R. Robbes — VISSOFT 2005
    3rd IEEE International Workshop on Visualizing Software For Understanding and Analysis, pp 33–38

Theses

  1. Of Change and Software
    R. Robbes — Ph.D. Thesis, 2008
    University of Lugano
  2. Mise en Oeuvre de la Programmation par Aspects dans le Cadre des Systèmes Multi-agents
    R. Robbes — Master’s Thesis, 2003
    University of Caen

Proceedings and special issues

  1. IWPSE-EVOL 2011: Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution and the 7th annual ERCIM Workshop on Software Evolution
    A. Cleve, R. Robbes (eds) — ACM Press, 2011
    Co-located with ESEC/FSE 2011
  2. Special issue on IWPSE-EVOL 2011
    A. Cleve, R. Robbes (eds) — JSME, 2013
    Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution (to appear in 2013)

Various

  1. Effective Mining of Software Repositories
    M. D’Ambros, R. Robbes — Tutorial, ICSM 2011
    27th IEEE International Conference on Sofware Maintenance
  2. Supporting Task-Oriented Navigation in IDEs with Configurable HeatMaps
    D. Rothlisberger, O. Nierstrasz, S. Ducasse, D. Pollet, R. Robbes — Tech Report, 2009
    University of Bern
  3. A Benchmark for Change Prediction
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza, D. Pollet — Tech Report, 2008
    University of Lugano
  4. Towards Change-aware Development Tools
    R. Robbes, M. Lanza — Tech Report, 2007
    University of Lugano
  5. Modeling Change-based Software Evolution
    R. Robbes — Doctoral Symposium, ECOOP 2007
    21st European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming
  6. Explicitely Modeling Software Change
    R. Robbes — LASER 2006
    3rd LASER Summer School on Software Engineering
  7. Un modèle multi-agent unifiant les notions de groupe et d’aspect
    R. Robbes, N. Bouraqadi, S. Stinckwich — JFSMA 2004
    13èmes Journées Francophones sur les Systèmes Multi-Agents