Two studies of opportunistic programming: interleaving web foraging, learning, and writing code

This paper investigates the role of online resources in problem solving. We look specifically at how programmers--an exemplar form of knowledge workers--opportunistically interleave Web foraging, learning, and writing code. We describe two studies of how programmers use online resources. The first, conducted in the lab, observed participants' Web use while building an online chat room. We found that programmers leverage online resources with a range of intentions: They engage in just-in-time learning of new skills and approaches, clarify and extend their existing knowledge, and remind themselves of details deemed not worth remembering. The results also suggest that queries for different purposes have different styles and durations. Do programmers' queries "in the wild" have the same range of intentions, or is this result an artifact of the particular lab setting? We analyzed a month of queries to an online programming portal, examining the lexical structure, refine...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Joel Brandt, Philip J. Guo, Joel Lewenstein, Mira Dontcheva, Scott R. Klemmer
• Keywords: CHI 2009, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords Opportunistic Programming, Online Knowledge Work, Programmers Leverage Online