End-user (non-professional) programmers often opportunistically create programs, they evaluate various alternatives and reuse existing code by merging components from it or modifying it to suit the context or problems of their programs. Finding and evaluating which program variants to reuse code from is challenging because the searching mechanisms within online repositories are not optimal. To understand the reuse behavior of end-user programmers and to provide implications on how to further support them, we conducted an empirical study in which eight end-user programmers foraged in online repositories, specifically App Inventor Gallery and File Exchange. Using Information Foraging Theory, we qualitatively analyzed the end-user programmers’ behavior and focused on not only program variants from a single source, but also on similar variants from various sources developed over time and by different authors. This analysis revealed new cue types and strategies specific to novice and experienced end-user programmers as they foraged between- and within-variants.

最终用户（非专业）程序员经常是机会主义地创建程序，他们评估各种替代方案，并通过合并其中的组件或对其进行修改以适合其程序的上下文或问题来重用现有代码。由于在线存储库中的搜索机制不是最佳的，因此查找和评估要重用代码的程序变体具有挑战性。为了了解最终用户程序员的重用行为并提供进一步支持他们的含义，我们进行了一项实证研究，其中八位最终用户程序员在在线存储库中搜寻，特别是App Inventor Gallery和File Exchange。利用信息搜寻理论，我们定性地分析了最终用户程序员的行为，不仅关注单一来源的程序变体，而且还涉及不同作者随时间推移开发的各种来源的相似变体。该分析揭示了新的提示类型和策略，这些提示和策略是新手和经验丰富的最终用户程序员在变量间和变量内觅食时使用的。