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Creating modern software inevitably requires using application programming interfaces (APIs). While software developers can sometimes use APIs by simply copying and pasting code examples, a lack of robust knowledge of how an API works can lead to defects, complicate software maintenance, and limit what someone can express with an API. Prior work has uncovered the many ways that API documentation fails to be helpful, though rarely describes precisely why. We present a theory of robust API knowledge that attempts to explain why, arguing that effective understanding and use of APIs depends on three components of knowledge: (1) the domain concepts the API models along with terminology, (2) the usage patterns of APIs along with rationale, and (3) facts about an API’s execution to support reasoning about its runtime behavior. We derive five hypotheses from this theory and present a study to test them. Our study investigated the effect of having access to these components of knowledge, finding that while learners requested these three components of knowledge when they were not available, whether the knowledge helped the learner use or understand the API depended on the tasks and likely the relevance and quality of the specific information provided. The theory and our evidence in support of its claims have implications for what content API documentation, tutorials, and instruction should contain and the importance of giving the right information at the right time, as well as what information API tools should compute, and even how APIs should be designed. Future work is necessary to both further test and refine the theory, as well as exploit its ideas for better instructional design. 

Coding bootcamps are a new and understudied way of training new software developers. To learn about the barriers bootcamp students face, we interviewed twenty-six coding bootcamp students and analyzed the interviews using the Communities of Practice framework. We found that bootcamps can be part of an alternate path into the software industry and they provided a second chance for those who missed computing education opportunities earlier, particularly for women. While bootcamps represented a second chance, students entering the industry through bootcamps faced great personal costs and risks, often including significant time, money and effort spent before, during, and after their bootcamps. Though the coursework of bootcamps only ranged from three to six months, career change could take students a year or more, with some students even attending sections of multiple bootcamps.