A socio-technical framework for supporting programmers

Studies have shown that programmers frequently seek external information during programming, from source code and documents, as well as from other programmers because much of the information remains in the heads of programmers. Programmers therefore often ask other programmers questions to seek information in a timely fashion to carry out their work. This information seeking entails several conflicting factors. From the perspective of the information-seeking programmer, not asking questions degrades productivity. Conversely, asking questions interrupts other programmers and degrades their productivity, and may be frowned upon by peers due to the perceived social inconsideration of the information seeker. From the perspective of the recipients of the question, even though helping is costly, not helping also incurs social costs due to the deviation from social norms. To balance all these factors, this paper proposes the STeP_IN (Socio-Technical Platform for In situ Networking) framework to guide the design of systems that support information seeking during different phases of programming. The framework facilitates access to the information in the heads of other programmers while minimizing the negative impacts on the overall productivity of the team.