The (R)evolution of Social Media in Software Engineering

The (R)evolution of Social Media in Software Engineering!

Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey Leif Singer Brendan Cleary Fernando Figueira Filho Alexey Zagalsky

ICSE June 4th, 2014 @margaretstorey

“I know how this was done because I did it” “I need complete understanding”

Peter Norvig, Coders at Work

“How is this likely done?” “Can I quickly get an understanding of what I need?”

Peter Norvig, Coders at Work

The emergence of software ecosystems and communities of practice [Wenger]

Social Media and Participatory Cultures [Jenkins]

Low barriers to artistic expression and engagement

Strong support for sharing one’s creations

Informal mentorship for novices

Members believe their contributions matter

Members care about social connections and what others think about their creations

5

The Participatory Culture in Software Engineering is not new

Internet and free/open source projects

Linux and the bazaar model of programming

Global software development (GSD)

Historical importance of tools and the social shaping of communities

6

“If we understand the revolutionary transformations caused by new media, we can anticipate and control them; but if we continue in our self-induced subliminal trance, we will be their slaves.” [Marshall McLuhan, 1974]

Understanding affordances of channels for communicating knowledge [Wasko et al.]

Communicating knowledge embedded in project artifacts (GitHub, Visual Studio…)

Communicating knowledge embedded "in community resources (Books, Usenet)

(new!) Communicating knowledge about "social networks (Facebook, Coderwall, Twitter…)

Communicating knowledge that is embedded in people (F2F, email, chat…)

8

1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 1970

Telephone Face2Face

Email IRC

ICQ Skype

Campfire

Google"Hangouts

De Marco/Lister Handel et al.

Nondigital Digital Digital & Socially Enabled

Telephone Face2Face

Project"Workbook

Documents

Email

Email Lists

VisualAge Visual Studio

NetBeans Eclipse IRC

ICQ Skype

SourceForge Wikis

GitH

ub

Trello Basecamp

Jazz

Campfire

Google"Hangouts

Punchcards TFS

Guzzi et al.

Pham et al., Dabbish et al.

Treude et al.

Gutwin et al. Bird et al.

Rigby et al.

1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 1970

Cunningham Robillard et al.

Nondigital Digital Digital & Socially Enabled

1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 1970

Telephone Face2Face

Project"Workbook

Documents

Email

Email Lists

VisualAge Visual Studio

NetBeans Eclipse IRC

ICQ Skype

SourceForge Wikis

Trello Basecamp Jazz

Campfire

Google"Hangouts

Punchcards TFS

Books Usenet Stack"

Overflow

Twitt

er

Google "Groups

Podcasts Blogs

GitH

ub Conferences

Wasko et al. Parnin et al.

Singer et al., Dullemond et al. Pagano et al.,

Parnin et al.

Slashdot HackerNews

Nondigital Digital Digital & Socially Enabled

Yam

mer

1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 1970

Telephone Face2Face

Project"Workbook

Documents

Email

Email Lists

VisualAge Visual Studio

NetBeans Eclipse IRC

ICQ Skype

SourceForge Wikis

Trello Basecamp Jazz

Campfire

Google"Hangouts

Punchcards TFS

Books Usenet Stack"

Overflow Google "Groups

Podcasts Blogs

GitH

ub Conferences

Societies Masterbranch Coderwall

LinkedIn Facebook

Barzilay et al.

Twitt

er

Slashdot HackerNews

Meetups

Nondigital Digital Digital & Socially Enabled Singer et al.

1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 1970

Telephone Face2Face

Project"Workbook

Documents

Email

Email Lists

VisualAge Visual Studio

NetBeans Eclipse IRC

ICQ Skype

SourceForge Wikis

Trello Basecamp Jazz

Campfire

Google"Hangouts

Punchcards TFS

Books Usenet Stack"

Overflow

Twitt

er

Google "Groups

Podcasts Blogs

GitH

ub Conferences

Societies LinkedIn Facebook

Slashdot HackerNews

Nondigital Digital Digital & Socially Enabled

Masterbranch Coderwall

Meetups

Yam

mer

We know how some specific tools are used for some specific tasks…

but how do developers use and combine these tools to support development activities within a

community of practice?

2013 Developer Survey Research Questions:

How do developers today use socially enabled tools to aid in keeping up, communication, learning, relationship building, and coordination? "

What challenges do developers face using these tools?

15

Respondents

Distributed to 7,000 GitHub developers (email) Over 1500 responses (>20% response rate)

Limitations

Social coder bias, self selected Dark matter developers not included "

[Scott Hanselman]

17

Digital: Web Search, Public Chat, Private Chat, Discussion Groups, …

Digital & social: Feeds and Blogs, Tagging, Q&A, SNS, Code hosting, …

Nondigital: Face-to-face, "books, magazines, …

18 Survey: http://leif.me/devsurvey/?source=icse

For each “activity” or “need”, which tools are used?

Selected Findings

19

average: 12 channels

top 25%: 14-21 channels

Ecosystem of tools

Learning

Cod

e H

ostin

g

Q&

A si

tes

Web

sea

rch

Coordination

Cod

e H

ostin

g C

oord

inat

ion

tool

s

Priv

ate

chat

Priv

ate

disc

uss

Face

to F

ace

Connecting

Mic

robl

oggi

ng

Priv

ate

disc

uss

Face

to F

ace

Cod

e ho

stin

g

Most Important Channels

F2F (496)

Q&A (512)

Search (429)

CodeHosting(1018)

Microblogging (221)

21 Interactive visualization: http://fose2014.thechiselgroup.org

"The closest thing that my ideal setup is Google Hangout + Trello + GitHub + Nitrous.io. The biggest challenge in soft-dev for me is four-fold: communicating the idea (Hangout), managing the idea (Trello), logging the implemented idea (GitHub), and explaining the implemented idea with the team (Nitrous.io). The first three solutions are pretty solid.

It's the fact you can't always sit right next to someone and show them the code and explain how everything works that is the most challenging part. Cloud9, Koding, Nitrous, etc are all trying to solve the last problem. So far, Nitrous works best for me but that's still where the biggest pain point is for me.”

22

Charting a course… Theories of media and how media shape

software development

How social/communication channels have evolved over time in software engineering

A survey to find out what channels developers use for development activities

Challenges and opportunities!

Tools

Challenges

Communities

Developers Content

Developer challenges

Media literacy skills Keeping up (information flood, new tools) Maintaining a state of flow

“If you have to go to a web browser there is a 10% chance you'll be distracted. I use the project "howdoi" to get answers from Stack Overflow on the command line so I can stay out of the browser and keep focus."

25

Content challenges

Trustworthy content Information fragmentation

“A lot of the answers and guidance I look for when developing code are scattered all over the internet, it would be nice if there was a place that I could get in touch with an expert developer to ask/discuss questions."

26

Community challenges

Barriers to entry When does social become anti-social? “Misinformation is easy to communicate behavior and propagate. People can be rude or obnoxious on social [media], distracting from a discussion. The asynchronous nature of social media interaction can often lead to missed information or incomplete contexts for understanding information."

27

Tool challenges

Channel confusion and lack of integration Finding the signal in the noise Vendor lock-in

“I worry that we are relying on many of these ‘free’ services, which in the end are not free, they simply have a different payment model (that appears to change)."

28

Tools

Opportunities

Communities

Developers Content

Opportunity: The emergence of the Social Programmer

Acceleration of learning, discovery and creativity for developers? "

Impact on productivity?"

Expanding career opportunities: impact on education?

30

Opportunity: Software Knowledge as Public Good

Mining knowledge from social media in software development

Impact on software quality?

31

Opportunity: Participatory development culture

Increasing the size of the crowd/community"

Discovering best not just next practices

32

Opportunity: Improve the social media ecosystem for developers

Social media channels for developers"

Channel integration – but need to know how! "

Specialized needs for the enterprise?

33

Implications for Researchers

Study social media using social media!

“Good to see a survey on this topic. It is wonderful to be part of a global developer movement and have the entire world of developers helping each other.” [Developer survey respondent]

34

Three trends…

The rise of the social programmer that actively participates in communities of practice

A rapid increase in the creation and diffusion "of peer produced and crowdsourced content

Accelerated formation of ecosystems around content, technology, media and developers

@margaretstorey Do you use Twitter to support your research? If yes, tell us how by using #twitter4se