React example viability for efficient API learning (REVEAL): A tool to help programmers utilize incompatible code examples in React.js

Programmers typically learn APIs on-the-fly through web examples. Incompatibilities and omissions in copied example code can create barriers for these learners. We present an analysis of example usage barriers programmers faced in a previous study of React.js novices. We show that a small set of errors prevented programmers from using most found code examples. In response, we built REVEAL to detect and repair the common errors we identified in copied code. We describe the formative evaluation of REVEAL and show that REVEAL users were more likely to successfully integrate code examples than participants in the previous study.