towards communities of practice for mashups

Dec 1st 2010

Towards Communities of Practice

for Mashups

Leif SingerSoftware Engineering Group

Leibniz University Hannover, [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Leif Singer: Towards Communities of Practice for Mashups Dec 1st 2010

INTRODUCTION

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Introduction

• Leif Singer, PhD Student in Software Engineering

• Software Engineering is Processes, Practices and Tools– Waterfall, Agile, XP, Lean– Architecture, Design Patterns– Information Flow in Projects– Model-Driven Development

• me: End User Development (EUD)

• Position Paper: Work in Progress

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Introduction

• IT Projects in Enterprises: expensive, take a long time

• Actual Needs: right here & right now, I need to combine data from these three systems to do my job better today!– There must be a Long Tail here ...

• Excel fills this gap! – but badly (much copy & paste between systems)

• Needed: a tool for end-user-driven enterprise integration– Sorry.

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Introduction

• Different Approaches for EUD Mashups– most workflow-based, e.g. Yahoo! Pipes

• What about Business Users? – They know Spreadsheets! – exisiting, proven approaches (Karma, Mashroom, Spreadmash, ...)

• Halbert: spreadsheets don’t switch between programming & runtime– no need to visualize program flow– less of a cognitive burden on non-programmers– Tuchinda et al.: Spreadsheet Mashups better understood than workflow

mashups (by end users)

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Introduction

• How to build a Community of Mashup Creators – in an Enterprise Setting?

• Tools are not enough, need sociotechnical approach

• with Tools that– are easily accessible– connect users

• Users themselves determine their Engagement– use superficially: like Excel on the Web– use it to mix Services: as a simple Mashup Editor– use it to create new Tools!

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Introduction

• Nardi: EUD Communities work when tools support layered approach– accessible to users of different knowledge levels

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no programming knowledge

professional programmers

tinkerersgardeners


Introduction

• Nardi specifically on Spreadsheets:– Formulas are accessible by all– Macros used by Tinkerers

• A layered approach for a Mashup Editor? – Macro Language for Spreadsheet Mashup Tool

• Great Example: Surveys from Google Docs– Spreadsheets + a Survey-Layer on top– also: see Keynote, Google Apps Script in Spreadsheets :)

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Introduction

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Introduction

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Introduction

• But what good is such a tool if everyone works in isolation?

• Fischer et al.: Users will work together when finding out they are working on similar Problems

• Use Social Software to improve the Awareness between Coworkers

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Like

I just created a new Mashup: Sales Report 2010. Take a Look!


A SCENARIO

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A Scenario

• People copy and paste stuff from enterprise systems into Excel all the time– enable them to directly include them– less error-prone, much faster

• Mrs. Miller: sales person, writes personal letters to her best customers– uses ERP system to find those– uses CRM tool to find their addresses– copies addresses into spreadsheet, sends emails

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A Scenario

• Creates a mashup that collects all that data for her– SNS automatically generates message

• Her contact Mr. Slater sees the messages– takes a look – has no use for it, but likes the idea: clicks “like”

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Like

Mrs. Miller: I just created a new Mashup: My Best Customers. Take a Look!

Like

Mrs. Miller: I just created a new Mashup: My Best Customers. Take a Look!


A Scenario

• Mr. Smith is a contact of Mr. Slater, gets noticed of “like”

• Takes a look, thinks it would be useful– clicks “make my own copy”– changes zip code, names it “Best Customers for Birmingham”

• Mrs. Miller is is happy other people find stuff she made useful

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Mr. Slater: I just liked a Mashup: My Best Customers.

Mr. Smith: I just copied the Mashup My Best Customers to a new one: Best Customers for Birmingham


A Scenario

• Mr. Smith is a tinkerer, plays with Mashup tool, finds macro language– writes a macro that will send the email for him

• Mrs. Miller gets notified

• Cherry-picks the changes she wants (see GitHub.com)– need (semi-)automatic creation of independent commits (see e.g.

Hayashi and Saeki 2010)

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Mr. Smith updated his Mashup Best Customers for Birmingham: “Send Email automatically”

Apply Change to My Best Customers?


OUR PROGRESS

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Application Landscape

Adapters

Social Network Site

Web Scraper

Mashup Editor

SVN Adapter

SVN Repositories

Trac Adapter

Trac Instances

Feed Adapter

Newsfeeds

End User

Web Pages


Our Progress

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Our Progress

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Our Progress

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Our Progress

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Our Progress

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Application-Landscape

WebanwendungWeb Application WebanwendungSVN Repository WebanwendungWiki WebanwendungSOAP Service...

Adapters

Web Scraper SVN Adapter Wiki Adapter Service Adapter...

SNSActivity Stream Mashup Tool SNS Service API

End User


REMAINING TASKS

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Remaining Tasks

• Categorization of Service Types– different requirements & uses

• Task Services– current VAT, Decision Services – possibly delayed, tied to roles, ...

• Entity Services– e.g. CRUD Operations

• Process Services– Processes have a State; User must be able to proceed in Process

• Feed Services– e.g. for the SNS Timeline

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Remaining Tasks

• Wrapper Services / Adapters

• some examples already developed (SVN, Trac, Feeds, ...)– from our domain

• Insight into real-world enterprise systems is missing– not easy to obtain

• An Approach for Adapters– not single technical solutions

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Remaining Tasks

• Mashup Editor still barebones– clean up needed– Macro Language– Visualizations of Results

• How to use the Service Types in the Editor? – can you create process mashups that users can then click through?

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CLOSING & DISCUSSION

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Closing

• A Spreadsheet-based Mashup Editor– supporting a Macro Language– integrated into a company-internal Social Network Site

• Make the Company’s Resources available via adapters– so End Users can do Data Integration

• Use Mechanisms from Social Software to build and support a Community of Practice for Mashups

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Discussion

• “Tools for making Tools”– More useful, more potential than mere problem solutions– Able to solve Problems that are still unknown– No Support in Mashup Editors for End Users? Google Spreadsheets!

• Have a Story on opening up Enterprise Silos? – Data Integrity, Confidentiality

• How to use Social Mechanisms in Research? – Do I have to prove the “Like”-Button works to use it?

• raise your hand or drop me a line :)– [email protected]– twitter.com/lsinger

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Thank you for your attention!




Attribution

• Faces taken from http://deleket.deviantart.com/art/Face-Avatars-107881096, published there under the "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported" Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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http://deleket.deviantart.com/art/Face-Avatars-107881096

http://deleket.deviantart.com/art/Face-Avatars-107881096

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

towards communities of practice for mashups

Documents

introduction

leif singer

scenario mr

introduction

work

find

users

tool