Helping Developers to Help Each Other
summary
PhD research interviews with 28 experienced developers (combined ~400 years) produce a ranked catalogue of peer-impact behaviours and show 89% agreement that automation as executable documentation speeds downstream work. A tested workshop uses double-sided quote cards and three discussion rules to surface concrete local problems, produce actionable fixes (tooling changes, clearer bug reports, naming fixes) and prompt teams to commit followups rather than leave insights undocumented.
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chapters (24)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:30Why did they do that
- 4:03Change Peoples Practice
- 10:39executable documentation
- 12:06sharing information
- 13:08hiding information
- 13:56sharing knowledge
- 15:04one true way
- 16:06owning code
- 17:16working in isolation
- 18:59legacy
- 21:13identifies
- 24:37themes
- 27:09analysis
- 27:41card sorting
- 28:20issues
- 31:05how does this affect me
- 31:45rules for discussion
- 34:29discussion
- 39:11workarounds
- 40:43reuse
- 41:27no rituals
- 42:07other suggestions
- 43:24choice
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