Combining the Knowledge of Experienced Programmers to Extract Useful Web Resources for Solving Programming Tasks.

People with more programming experience often perform more streamlined and efficient web searches. Previous studies have shown that expert programmers spend less time searching for knowledge on the web than novices. However, which web resources are practical for expert programmers and whether they lead to efficient programming problem-solving is unknown. In this study, we aim to extract practical learning web resources for solving programming tasks from web browsing logs of programming experts. We present a web browser extension that tracks a user’s browsing history. Data is collected from ten participants with over four years of programming experience. Participants are asked to complete three text-mining tasks using the R programming language. After the experiment, participants are asked to complete a post-experiment survey to indicate which web resource assisted them in solving the problem. The results show that combining the results of web access for programmers make it possible to discover practical web resources for problem-solving. Our results demonstrate a strategy for extracting web resources helpful in solving programming tasks.