what-when-how
In Depth Tutorials and Information
he first design principle that was used states that when a programmer is look-
ing for information and help, it is a highly individualized act. In other words, when
a programmer is stuck and looking for outside advice, he tends to be working on
highly specific problems and projects that require quite a bit of overhead to even
begin to understand. In order for the programmer to not lose considerable time by
having to set up the problem again, the information-seeking time should be as low
as possible. If possible, the information that the programmer finds should also be
presented in such a way that the programmer understands quickly and does not
waste time wading through useless knowledge.
he second design principle that was used when designing the STeP_IN frame-
work states that if it is ever left up to the programmer, the amount of peer advice
he seeks should be limited. When a programmer seeks advice or help from a fellow
programmer, both are losing time. Although the information seeker is looking for
advice for a problem that is in his current workload, he is being inefficient by being
required to set up the problem to the expert programmer. he information seeker
in this case is not losing much more time than he or she would otherwise, on the
other hand. However, the expert programmer, in this case, is being interrupted by
the information seeker and is being completely taken away from his or her current
workload and also his or her time-expensive concentration. he expert programmer
is losing much more time relative to the information seeker, and this could have
negative social impacts for both people involved.
he third design principle that was used states that when peer programmers are
used as knowledge sources, the information seeker should be able to get the desired
information relatively quickly and should not have to overly exert himself or herself
to do so. A big problem in peer programming information seeking is knowledge of
who knows what about certain topics. he STeP_IN framework is built to alleviate
the stress of not knowing who is an expert on what topics. he information seeker
should not have to have this seek this information as well. Also, major amounts of
time are wasted if the information that is given to the seeker is not important or not
helpful in some way. he information that the seeker receives should be as close to
what the information seeker is looking for as possible, because otherwise everyone's
time has been wasted with the likelihood of more time being wasted getting the
right information.
he fourth design principle that was used in the design of the STeP_IN frame-
work states that the interruption of expert programmers should be as brief as pos-
sible. his is a fairly simple statement that has been discussed before. Because of the
extremely large cost of interrupting expert programmers, the time spent with them
should be as small as possible.
he fifth and final major design principle that was used states that no program-
mer should be forced into sharing information or helping another programmer if
he or she is not willing to. here are many reasons that programmers would need
to make themselves unavailable for information seekers. For example, the expert
programmer might have a deadline to meet, the programmer might be engrossed in
