The document discusses the evolution of social media and its impact on software engineering. It outlines how communication channels have changed over time from non-digital to digital to socially-enabled digital tools. A developer survey found that developers use an ecosystem of 12 or more tools on average to support different activities. Key challenges identified include information overload, maintaining focus, finding trustworthy content, barriers to community participation, and tool/channel integration issues. Opportunities discussed include the rise of the "social programmer", treating software knowledge as a public good, participatory development culture, and improving the social media ecosystem for developers.

1. 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

2. “I know how this was done because I did it”
“I need complete understanding”
Peter Norvig, Coders at Work

3. “How is this likely done?”
“Can I quickly get an understanding of what I need?”
Peter Norvig, Coders at Work

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. “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]

8. 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

9. 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

10. Telephone
Face2Face
Project"
Workbook
Documents
Email
Email Lists
VisualAge
Visual Studio
NetBeans
Eclipse
IRC
ICQ
Skype
SourceForge
Wikis
GitHub
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

11. 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
Twitter
Google "
Groups
Podcasts
Blogs
GitHub
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

12. Yammer
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
GitHub
Conferences
Societies
Masterbranch
Coderwall
LinkedIn
Facebook
Barzilay et al.
Twitter
Slashdot
HackerNews
Meetups
Nondigital
Digital
Digital & Socially Enabled
Singer et al.

13. 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
Twitter
Google "
Groups
Podcasts
Blogs
GitHub
Conferences
Societies
LinkedIn
Facebook
Slashdot
HackerNews
Nondigital
Digital
Digital & Socially Enabled
Masterbranch
Coderwall
Meetups
Yammer

14. 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?

15. 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

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

17. Limitations
Social coder bias, self selected
Dark matter developers not included "
[Scott Hanselman]
17

18. 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?

19. Selected Findings
19
average: 12 channels
top 25%: 14-21 channels

20. Ecosystem of tools
Learning
CodeHosting
Q&Asites
Websearch
Coordination
CodeHosting
Coordinationtools
Privatechat
Privatediscuss
FacetoFace
Connecting
Microblogging
Privatediscuss
FacetoFace
Codehosting

21. Most Important Channels
F2F
(496)
Q&A
(512)
Search
(429)
Code
Hosting
(1018)
Microblogging
(221)
21Interactive visualization: http://fose2014.thechiselgroup.org

22. "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

23. 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!

24. Tools
Challenges
Communities
Developers Content

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. Tools
Opportunities
Communities
Developers Content

30. 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

31. Opportunity: Software
Knowledge as Public Good
Mining knowledge from social media in
software development
Impact on software quality?
31

32. Opportunity: Participatory
development culture
Increasing the size of the crowd/community"
Discovering best not just next practices
32

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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
@margaretstoreyDo you use Twitter to support your research?
If yes, tell us how by using #twitter4se