what-when-how
In Depth Tutorials and Information
he framework also provides ways to identify another programmer as a resource
without actually pulling that programmer away from his or her work. he informa-
tion about the knowledge of each programmer is found in what is called the techni-
cal proile of a programmer. here is also a social proile of every programmer that
pertains to whom the particular programmer is comfortable assisting and receiving
assistance from. Both of these profiles are used to successfully show the program-
mer in question who may be able to help or advise them on their current situation.
he most important concept to remember in this situation is that only people who
are willing to help should be asked to assist someone. his is related to one of the
five design principles of the STeP_IN framework.
he last main facet of the STeP_IN framework that is provided for the pro-
grammer is the creation of a socially aware communication channel. Similar to
what was discussed in the previous paragraph, the main idea behind this mecha-
nism is to allow an expert programmer to decline giving assistance without hav-
ing any blatantly obvious social consequences that could lead to larger problems
in the workplace. his concept is implemented with something that is quite simi-
lar to an electronic mailing list. Once an information seeker poses a question
via the information access mechanism, all expert programmers that are deemed
relevant by their technical and social profiles are notified. If one answers, then
the information seeker will be able to communicate with him or her as needed. If
an expert programmer chooses not to answer, then the information seeker would
never know that he or she was denied assistance by that particular programmer
and there would, theoretically, not be any extreme social consequences.
he basic layout for the STeP_IN framework is very loose, based on the fact that
it needs to be incorporated into whatever environment the programming company
is using at any given time. herefore, there are only a few select screenshots that
can be made.
15.5 AriadneFramework[4]
In addition to the STeP_IN framework, a popular implementation of the thoughts
and ideas mentioned in these papers is the Ariadne framework. Ariadne is a plug-in
extension that is tailored and built for the Java-based Eclipse environment. he
framework searches the currently loaded software project for software dependen-
cies, as discussed in earlier sections, and also searches the authorship information
that is inherently stored in the network repositories of Eclipse. Ariadne takes this
information and translates technical dependency information into social depen-
dency information. From these social and technical dependencies, Ariadne creates
visualizations that are used to increase productivity and efficiency throughout the
collaborative software development project.
In a paper introducing the Ariadne framework [4], four main situations from two
companies are brought to the reader's attention. hese four particular scenarios were
