Publications
Dissertation
Supporting Just-In-Time Learning for Data Science Programming. Nischal Shrestha. North Carolina State University, 2022
2021
Unravel: A Fluent Code Explorer for Data Wrangling. Nischal Shrestha, Titus Barik and Chris Parnin. UIST 2021: 34th ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
We built a tool called Unravel to help data scientists understand and explore fluent code via structured edits using drag-and-drop and toggle switch interactions. Through a think-aloud user study with 14 data scientists, we found that Unravel facilitated diverse activities such as validating assumptions about the code or data, exploring alternatives, and understanding function behavior.
Remote, but Connected: How #TidyTuesday Provides an Online Community of Practice for Data Scientists. Nischal Shrestha, Titus Barik and Chris Parnin. CSCW 2021: 24th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Through semi-structured interviews with 26 data scientists, we uncovered motivations behind their participation in #TidyTuesday, how the project benefited them, and how it cultivated an online CoP.
2020
Here We Go Again: Why Is It Difficult for Developers to Learn Another Programming Language? Nischal Shrestha, Colton Botta, Titus Barik and Chris Parnin. ICSE 2020: 42nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering. Won an ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award.
We found that previous programming language knowledge can interfere with learning another programming language.
2019
Instrument Designs for Validating Cross-Language Behavioral Differences Nischal Shrestha and Chris Parnin. 2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)
We designed three instruments that can help identify and validate meaningful behavior differences between two languages to pinpoint potential misconceptions.
Exploring Tools and Strategies Used During Regular Expression Composition Tasks Gina R. Bai, Brian Clee, Nischal Shrestha, Carl Chapman, Cimone Wright, Kathryn T. Stolee. 2019 IEEE/ACM 27th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC)
We conducted an exploratory case study to reveal the tools and strategies developers use during regular expression composition.
2018
It’s Like Python But: Towards Supporting Transfer of Programming Language Knowledge Nischal Shrestha, Titus Barik and Chris Parnin. 2018 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)
We explored a prototype transfer tool to support learning new programming languages, given experience in one or more languages.