Two Sides of the Same Coin: Software Developers' Perceptions of Task Switching and Task Interruption

In the constantly evolving world of software development, switching back and forth between tasks has become the norm. While task switching often allows developers to perform tasks effectively and may increase creativity via the flexible pathway, there are also consequences to frequent task-switching. For high-momentum tasks like software development, "flow", the highly productive state of concentration, is paramount. Each switch distracts the developers' flow, requiring them to switch mental state and an additional immersion period to get back into the flow. However, the wasted time due to time fragmentation caused by task switching is largely invisible and unnoticed by developers and managers. We conducted a survey with 141 software developers to investigate their perceptions of differences between task switching and task interruption and to explore whether they perceive task switchings as disruptive as interruptions. We found that practitioners perceive considerable similarities between the disruptiveness of task switching (either planned or unplanned) and random interruptions. The high level of cognitive cost and low performance are the main consequences of task switching articulated by our respondents. Our findings broaden the understanding of flow change among software practitioners in terms of the characteristics and categories of disruptive switches as well as the consequences of interruptions caused by daily stand-up meetings

Agent-SE: A Methodology for Agent Oriented

this paper is as follows. In Section 2 we discuss how scalability and complexity can be handled in agent systems. In Section 3 the Agent-SE approach is introduced. In Section 4 a method to derive organizational knowledge is presented. Finally, a conclusion is given in Section

Search-based Testing of Multi-agent Manufacturing Systems for Deadlocks based on Models

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been extensively used in the automation of manufacturing systems. However, similar to other distributed systems, autonomous agents' interaction in the Automated Manufacturing Systems (AMS) can potentially lead to runtime behavioral failures including deadlocks. Deadlocks can cause major financial consequences by negatively affecting the production cost and time. Although the deadlock monitoring techniques can prevent the harmful effects of deadlocks at runtime, but the testing techniques are able to detect design faults during the system design and development stages that can potentially lead to deadlock at runtime. In this paper, we propose a search based testing technique for deadlock detection in multi-agent manufacturing system based on the MAS design models. MAS design artifacts, constructed using Multi-agent Software Engineering (MaSE) methodology, are used for extracting test requirements for deadlock detection. As the case study, the proposed technique is applied to a multi-agent manufacturing system for verifying its effectiveness. A MAS simulator has been developed to simulate multi-agent manufacturing system behavior under test and the proposed testing technique has been implemented in a test requirement generator tool which creates test requirements based on the given design models

Ex-W-Pert System: A Web-Based Distributed Expert System for Groupware Design

The World Wide Web (Web) allows people at remotely located sites to communicate and share their ideas using a common communication protocol. A common use of the Web system is running a client application, using a browsing tool, by pointing to a local or proxy server to browse data written in the hypertext format that contains anchors that address other URLs. In this paper a new application of the Web system for sharing knowledge based systems and groupware development activities is introduced. An architecture for a Web-based Distributed Expert System (Ex-W-Pert System) is proposed and an implementation of the proposed architecture in groupware design is demonstrated. The resources and knowledge bases are distributed and can be accessed through the internet. Keywords: World Wide Web (WWW), Expert System, Communication Engine, Groupware System, Design 1 INTRODUCTION The World Wide Web (Web) allows people at remotely located sites to communicate and share their ideas using a c..

A framework of object identification and refinement process in object-oriented analysis and design

There are already many projects focusing on Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools for object-oriented analysis and design. However, at this moment, there are certain limitations to such solutions, such as, they are concentrated on object-oriented notation and forward/reverse engineering, and the methodology for object identification and refinement are not implemented well. This paper presents a methodology for object identification and refinement from the software requirements, which is based on object-based formal specification (OBFS). This methodology provides the mean of understanding the object-oriented paradigm easily, and supports us with identifying and refining the objects. As a case study for a comprehensive explanation about how to use this methodology, an example of software project for an air traffic control system is given

Integrated Reasoning and Learning Environment for Electronic Commerce Agents

: Although there are many projects focusing on multi-agent systems, there are only a few focusing on the knowledge sharing. Furthermore, there is no project aiming at knowledge sharing and groupware system with a very large number of actors (i.e., agents or human counterparts). The internet, in general, and electronic commerce, in particular, are examples of such systems. In this project, we introduce a model and devise an implementation for the large scale knowledge sharing using mass entrophy, Bayesian networks, game theory, document object model (DOM) and network security. The agent model for the system components blends the traditional expert systems' reasoning engine with a multi-layer knowledge base, communication and documentation engines. We test the ideas via implementing electronic commerce (EC) agents. Key words Software Agent, WWW, Expert system, Groupware, Uncertainty Management {85{ 1 Introduction There are many active projects focusing on multiuser groupware systems ..

Monitoring Multiagent Systems for Deadlock Detection Based on UML Models,"

ABSTRACT There is a growing demand for Multi-Agent Systems (MAS