Developer Experience : Concept and Definition

New ways of working such as globally distributed development or the integration of self-motivated external developers into software ecosystems will require a better and more comprehensive understanding of developers' feelings, perceptions, motivations and identification with their tasks in their respective project environments. User experience is a concept that captures how persons feel about products, systems and services. It evolved from disciplines such as interaction design and usability to a much richer scope that includes feelings, motivations, and satisfaction. Similarly, developer experience could be defined as a means for capturing how developers think and feel about their activities within their working environments, with the assumption that an improvement of the developer experience has positive impacts on characteristics such as sustained team and project performance. This article motivates the importance of developer experience, sketches related approaches from other domains, proposes a definition of developer experience that is derived from similar concepts in other domains, describes an ongoing empirical study to better understand developer experience, and finally gives an outlook on planned future research activities.Peer reviewe

Stationen mechanischer Sprachsynthese vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert

Der Aufsatz widmet sich einigen markanten historischen Einzelleistungen auf dem Gebiet der mechanischen Sprachsynthese, die auch heute noch faszinierend, jedoch zumeist nur in groben Zügen bekannt sind. An der hier präsentierten Auswahl erweist sich sowohl die fesselnde Kraft eines einmal als grundsätzlich praktikabel erkannten Konzeptes der stimmlichen Anregung als auch die hieraus resultierende Originalität immer neuer Ansätze, diesem Syntheseprinzip zum technologischen Durchbruch zu verhelfen

Wolfgang von Kempelen’s speaking machine as an instrument for demonstration and research

Scientific interest in von Kempelen's 'speaking machine' stems mainly from a general interest in the history of science. This study, however, is devoted to the question of what relevance the 'speaking machine' has today. Apart for discussing why it fascinates researchers and non-researchers alike we describe the potential of replicas as an instrument for demonstration and for researching speech generation

What makes 'mama' and 'papa' acceptable? Experiments with a replica of von Kempelen's speaking machine

The paper reports on experiments with acoustic recordings of a self-built replica of the historic speaking machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen. Several possibilities of the reed as the glottal excitation mechanism were tested. Perception tests with naïve listeners revealed that the machinegenerated words 'mama' and 'papa' were partially recognised as an authentic child voice – as it was also the case in von Kempelen's demonstrations in the late 18th century

Test background estimates for resonance measurements using a combination of mixed events and like sign pairs

Two approaches for extracting properties of neutral resonances out of invariant mass distributions are presented: like-sign and event-mixing signal. Additionally a correction function based on event-mixing, aimed at revising detection differences of opposite charged particles, which is applied to the like-sign signal is tested. The analysis is conducted using pp collisions at 7 TeV and concludes an improved description of the residual background by the correction function. Furthermore no change of the resonance's extracted parameters is observed. The event-mixing method exhibits a problematic description of the background which is concluded in this thesis to be caused by the necessity of an azimuthal angle rotation for event-mixing.The question whether matter can be divided infinite times has occupied scientists for more than two hundred years now. The aim to describe matter, their elementary constituents and interactions is the definition of particle physics. In order to examine these constituents matter is smashed together at large energy and the fragments analyzed. This is done, among other places, at the CERN organization in Geneva, Switzerland, using the Large Hadron Collider. Some of these basic constituents, called quarks, are only observed as hadrons: particles that consist of two or three quarks (at least to prevalent awareness). In experiments such as ALICE at CERN the particles created are measured using elaborate detectors. There exist hadrons which have a very short lifetime. They are produced in the collision and decay already before reaching the first detectors. They are called resonances and their study is naturally difficult. In order to still be able to detect these particles one looks at their decay products. The particles might though be rare and in general millions of particles are arriving at the detectors. A link between the decay products needs to be established in order to examine the mother particle. Confronted with the huge amount of data this can not be done by hand. Statistical methods are used to find the link, called correlation, between the decay product particles. The name “resonance” comes from the signal it produces: as in the figure, a bump indicates that a particle is found with a certain mass (depending on the position of the bump). But how high is the bump, how wide is it? These questions are for particle physicists essential when they try to determine the properties of a resonance. Here the description of the background plays a major role. In this thesis a new approach has been taken to describe this background: to the previous description a correction has been applied. And results show that this is in fact an improvement. Although not very large it can help to open the window into the subatomic world a bit wider and enrich our knowledge of particles. At the same time, as well done in this thesis, comparisons of established methods are conducted and results indicate that sometimes simpler methods can be highly effective. So the work of physicists continues explaining this world, step by step. And sometimes relying on simple methods can blend out almost all the noise, isn't that something

On the Bauschinger effect in supercoooled melts under shear: results from mode coupling theory and molecular dynamics simulations

We study the nonlinear rheology of a glass-forming binary mixture under the reversal of shear flow using molecular dynamics simulations and a schematic model of the mode-coupling theory of the glass transition (MCT). Memory effects lead to a history-dependent response, as exemplified by the vanishing of a stress-overshoot phenomenon in the stress--strain curves of the sheared liquid, and a change in the apparent elastic coefficients around states with zero stress. We investigate the various retarded contributions to the stress response at a given time schematically within MCT. The connection of this macroscopic response to single-particle motion is demonstrated using molecular-dynamics simulation

Guidelines for using empirical studies in software engineering education

Software engineering education is under constant pressure to provide students with industry-relevant knowledge and skills. Educators must address issues beyond exercises and theories that can be directly rehearsed in small settings. Industry training has similar requirements of relevance as companies seek to keep their workforce up to date with technological advances. Real-life software development often deals with large, software-intensive systems and is influenced by the complex effects of teamwork and distributed software development, which are hard to demonstrate in an educational environment. A way to experience such effects and to increase the relevance of software engineering education is to apply empirical studies in teaching. In this paper, we show how different types of empirical studies can be used for educational purposes in software engineering. We give examples illustrating how to utilize empirical studies, discuss challenges, and derive an initial guideline that supports teachers to include empirical studies in software engineering courses. Furthermore, we give examples that show how empirical studies contribute to high-quality learning outcomes, to student motivation, and to the awareness of the advantages of applying software engineering principles. Having awareness, experience, and understanding of the actions required, students are more likely to apply such principles under real-life constraints in their working life.Peer reviewe

A Platform for Teaching Applied Distributed Software Development : The Ongoing Journey of the Helsinki Software Factory

Teaching distributed software development (DSD) in project courses where student teams are geographically distributed promises several benefits. One main benefit is that in contrast to traditional classroom courses, students can experience the effects of distribution and the mechanisms for coping with distribution by themselves, therefore understanding their relevance for software development. They can thus learn to take more care of distribution challenges and risks when starting to develop software in industry. However, providing a sustainable environment for such project courses is difficult. A development environment is needed that can connect to different distributed teams and an ongoing routine to conduct such courses needs to be established. This article sketches a picture of the Software Factory, a platform that supports teaching distributed student projects and that has now been operational for more than three years. We describe the basic steps of conducting Software Factory projects, and portray experiences from past factory projects. In addition, we provide a short overview of related approaches and future activities.Peer reviewe