"Breaking the code", moving between private and public work in collaborative software development

Abstract

Software development is typically cooperative endeavor where a group of engineers need to work together to achieve a common, coordinated result. As a cooperative effort, it is especially difficult because of the many interdependencies amongst the artifacts created during the process. This has lead software engineers to create tools, such as configuration management tools, that isolate developers from the effects of each other's work. In so doing, these tools create a distinction between private and public aspects of work of the developer. Technical support is provided to these aspects as well as for transitions between them. However, we present empirical material collected from a software development team that suggests that the transition from private to public work needs to be more carefully handled. Indeed, the analysis of our material suggests that different formal and informal work practices are adopted by the developers to allow a delicate transition, where software developers are not largely affected by the emergent public work. Finally, we discuss how groupware tools might support this transition. Copyright 2003 ACM.