I’m excited to be a speaker at Bridges Summit on August 28th, and will be leading a community discussion! Bridges Summit is a free virtual event that bridges research and industry communities, leading a collaborative open source initiative to reframe “Developer Productivity”. We’re taking a step back to think about what we are aiming for, and bringing clarity to that vision with the power of collaboration, and the wisdom from all of our years of experience.

Come join us for an amazing community discussion around this important topic.

https://bridges-summit.org/speakers...

52.7% software engineers experience frequent-intense levels of imposter phenomenon. Women (60.6%) >> men (48.8%). Asian (67.9%) and Black (65.1%) >> White (50.0%). Less common if married with kids. Guenes et al. at ICSE 2024.

Preprint https://arxiv.org/pdf/...

"Programs implemented while high contain more bugs and take longer to write (p < 0.05) --- a small to medium effect (0.22 ≤ d ≤ 0.44). We also did not find any evidence that high programmers generate more divergent solutions." He et al. at ICSE 2024.

GitHub Copilot solves tasks written in Chinese worse than tasks written in Japanese and English.

Koyanagi et al. used 756 questions of varying difficulty levels from AtCoder contests. The results reveal that Copilot performed the worst in the Chinese setting compared to the other two languages. Inspecting the situations when Copilot succeeds for English and Japanese but fails for Chinese the authors observed that Copilot tends ot suggest incorrect code in situations where the correct code should handle multiple conditions, complex conditions, or string outputs.

Preprint https://win.tue.nl/~aserebre/...

An Empirical Software Engineering article with Önder Babur and Eleni Constantinou "Language usage analysis for EMF metamodels on GitHub" has appeared online. https://link.springer.com/article/...

With Reed Milewicz we conduct a 10-15m survey of mentorship among people who develop software. We offer a $100 Amazon gift card raffle to participants & donate $1 USD to an open-source 501(c)(3) non-profit for every survey completed.

Survey link: https://snl-survey.sandia.gov/surve...

Please help us to help the next generation of developers!

"Robot, let us pray! Can and should robots have religious functions? An ethical exploration of religious robots" by Anna Puzio.

"With approximately 20 religious robots worldwide, religious robotics is still in its early stages (Balle 2022). However, there are already some notable examples of religious robots, and with advancing technology, it is expected that their numbers will increase. Here is a brief overview: BlessU-2, a German robot, delivers blessings in various languages (Löffler et al. 2021, p. 575). SanTO (the Sanctified Theomorphic Operator) (Trovato et al. 2019) takes on the appearance of a Christian Catholic saint and recites sacred texts while accompanying the faithful in prayer. It also serves as a companion with psychological functions, contributing to the well-being of individuals, particularly the elderly (Löffler et al. 2021, p. 573; Trovato et al. 2021, p. 545). Celeste, resembling a Catholic angel, provides spiritual guidance through prayer and prints personalized Bible verses. Meanwhile, Mindar, a robot priest in Japan, embodies the Buddhist teacher, Kannon Bodhisattva, and conducts Zen ceremonies at the temple (Smith 2022, p. ch. 5; Klein 2019). The monk robot, Xi’aner, follows visitors around the temple, responds to their inquiries about Buddhism and plays Buddhist music. It is also available as a chatbot with which you can communicate over online messenger services. Xi’aner is designed with the purpose of promoting Buddhism in China (Trovato et al. 2021, p. 544; Löffler et al. 2021, p. 573). Consequently, it is perceived not as a threat to religious teachings but rather as a means of contributing to the dissemination of Buddhism (Löffler et al. 2021, p. 573). Moreover, in Japan, the humanoid robot Pepper is utilized in Buddhist funerals because it is cheaper than a human priest. It also broadcasts the ceremony over the internet for those who are unable to attend (ibid.). Michael Arnold et al. (2021) delve into the deployment of Carl, Pepper, and the robot dog, Aibo, in funeral settings."

https://link.springer.com/article/...

Greg Wilson, whom you might know due to “Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It” and the “It Will Never Work in Theory” website, is volunteering with Rainbow Railroad, a non-profit that helps LGBTQ+ refugees resettle in safe(r) countries. Greg’s team is sponsoring a lesbian woman from Uganda to come to Canada, and trying to raise $16,500 to help with her first-year costs.

If you would like to help her, please donate on
https://donate.rainbowrailroad.org/...

"Dear e-mailer,

XXX is out of the country, thus reponding to your e-mail will take longer. While you're waiting for your response, XXX has OutHorsed his instant replies to an Icelandic horse called Hekla frá Þorkellshóli, who is trained in corporate communications:

Aælkj5hbyiu89 n89u ð´'i2+ji hð9 u3boæjrk2 n 9089ui qeægj eronbqo ð gnjqergni8h aq fear i
Qfiuoq4uhhæ 34 4 4 ædoifuuuuuuuuua q34o

This email was composed by an Icelandic horse using a giant keyboard for horses. Seriously.
Outhorse your email at: outhorseyouremail.com"

"In practice, UML is a counterproductive tool in software and system design." Gerrit Muller (Gaudí Systems Architecting)

"The best predictor for a software engineer's career trajectory is grit, the ability to handle discomfort, and operate in a perpetual state of uncertainty." -- Gunnar Kudrjavets.

Together with colleagues from University of Zurich I am conducting a survey about skills for code review! With this survey, we aim to investigate skills that reviewers need to perform an efficient code review. Our main goal is to improve developers' code review practices. Therefore, we are looking for developers with experience as code reviewers. This questionnaire takes 15-20 minutes and consists of 21 questions.

https://uzh.ch/zi/cl/...

Thank you for your help!

Hello everyone!

Together with colleagues from Eindhoven University of Technology, Sandia National Laboratories, and Microsoft we want to better understand experiences of LGBTIQ+ software managers and engineers related to mentoring.

During the study we want to ask you a few questions on what mentorship means to you, and whether you have any experiences to share as a mentor, mentee, or both. Through this research, we seek to identify effective mentorship practices and to develop methods to help policy-makers and team leads promote a more inclusive workplace culture.

Participants must be 18+. Your participation in this study is voluntary and confidential. Only the researchers involved in this study will see your responses. If you are interested in participating, you can click the link below to schedule a time slot for an interview; when you book an interview with us, we'll contact you to set up a video conferencing solution.

Book a slot for an interview https://mentorshipstudy.youcanbook.me/...

Reminder: the academic survey over devRant is still open, 5-7 minutes https://forms.gle/do2KK8cGfv5w6cjY9

We are a group of researchers from Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands, studying communication between software developers. We would like to understand the role devRant plays in developers' professional life and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the platform. There are no commercial parties involved and results of the study will be shared on devRant.

Reading job ads sometimes make me wonder... "You Deeply Identify with Core Butterfly Network Values: Efficient & Speedy - you get work done in a fraction of the time as industry peers".

A very cool overview of several recent studies of the COVID 19 pandemic on software developers. Taken from "A Tale of Two Cities: Software Developers Working from Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic" by D. Ford, M.-A. Storey, T. Zimmermann, C. Bird, S. Jaffe, C. Maddila, J. Butler, B. Houck, and N. Nagappan. https://arxiv.org/pdf/...

REMINDER TL;DR: academic survey over devRant, 10-15 minutes https://forms.gle/do2KK8cGfv5w6cjY9

We are a group of researchers from Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands, studying communication between software developers. We would like to understand the role devRant plays in developers' professional life and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the platform.

To this end we created an overview of the topics discussed. The purpose of this survey is to get your opinion on the overview. The results of the survey will be reported in a research manuscript, which will be submitted for a peer-reviewed publication.

The survey will take 10-15 minutes. The collection and analysis of the data are governed by a strict privacy policy in both North America and Europe. As such, your responses will be anonymized and any personally identifying information will be removed. While the survey has been approved by @dfox individual answers will not be shared with him or any other party not directly involved in the research.

Survey: https://forms.gle/do2KK8cGfv5w6cjY9

We thank you for your participation.
Foutse Khomh, Nicole Novielli, Moses Openja, Alexander Serebrenik, Gias Uddin

TL;DR: academic survey over devRant, 5-7 minutes https://forms.gle/do2KK8cGfv5w6cjY9

We are a group of researchers from Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands, studying communication between software developers. We would like to understand the role devRant plays in developers' professional life and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the platform.

To this end we created an overview of the topics discussed. The purpose of this survey is to get your opinion on the overview. The results of the survey will be reported in a research manuscript, which will be submitted for a peer-reviewed publication.

The survey will take 5-7 minutes. The collection and analysis of the data are governed by a strict privacy policy in both North America and Europe. As such, your responses will be anonymized and any personally identifying information will be removed. While the survey has been approved by @dfox individual answers will not be shared with him or any other party not directly involved in the research.

Survey: https://forms.gle/do2KK8cGfv5w6cjY9

We thank you for your participation.
Foutse Khomh, Nicole Novielli, Moses Openja, Alexander Serebrenik, Gias Uddin

Looking at job ads...

"CompanyX is a fun place to work, no downers, egos, pessimists or jerks allowed."

Welcome to the wonderful world of optimistic ego-less uppers!