by Leif Singer

1. Towards
Communities of Practice
for Mashups
Leif Singer
Software Engineering Group
Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
leif.singer@inf.uni-hannover.de
Dec 1st 2010

2. INTRODUCTION
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3. Introduction
• Leif Singer, PhD Student in Software Engineering
• Software Engineering is Processes, Practices and Tools
– Waterfall, Agile, XP, Lean
– Architecture, Design Patterns
– Information Flow in Projects
– Model-Driven Development
• me: End User Development (EUD)
• Position Paper: Work in Progress
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4. Introduction
• IT Projects in Enterprises: expensive, take a long time
• Actual Needs: right here & right now, I need to combine data
from these three systems to do my job better today!
– There must be a Long Tail here ...
• Excel fills this gap!
– but badly (much copy & paste between systems)
• Needed: a tool for end-user-driven enterprise integration
– Sorry.
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5. Introduction
• Different Approaches for EUD Mashups
– most workflow-based, e.g. Yahoo! Pipes
• What about Business Users?
– They know Spreadsheets!
– exisiting, proven approaches (Karma, Mashroom, Spreadmash, ...)
• Halbert: spreadsheets don’t switch between programming &
runtime
– no need to visualize program flow
– less of a cognitive burden on non-programmers
– Tuchinda et al.: Spreadsheet Mashups better understood than workflow
mashups (by end users)
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6. Introduction
• How to build a Community of Mashup Creators – in an
Enterprise Setting?
• Tools are not enough, need sociotechnical approach
• with Tools that
– are easily accessible
– connect users
• Users themselves determine their Engagement
– use superficially: like Excel on the Web
– use it to mix Services: as a simple Mashup Editor
– use it to create new Tools!
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7. Introduction
• Nardi: EUD Communities work when tools support layered
approach
– accessible to users of different knowledge levels
tinkerers
no programming gardeners professional
knowledge programmers
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8. Introduction
• Nardi specifically on Spreadsheets:
– Formulas are accessible by all
– Macros used by Tinkerers
• A layered approach for a Mashup Editor?
– Macro Language for Spreadsheet Mashup Tool
• Great Example: Surveys from Google Docs
– Spreadsheets + a Survey-Layer on top
– also: see Keynote, Google Apps Script in Spreadsheets :)
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9. Introduction
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10. Introduction
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11. Introduction
• But what good is such a tool if everyone works in isolation?
• Fischer et al.: Users will work together when finding out they
are working on similar Problems
• Use Social Software to improve the Awareness between
Coworkers
I just created a new Mashup:
Sales Report 2010. Take a
Look!
Like
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12. A SCENARIO
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13. A Scenario
• People copy and paste stuff from enterprise systems
into Excel all the time
– enable them to directly include them
– less error-prone, much faster
• Mrs. Miller: sales person, writes personal letters to
her best customers
– uses ERP system to find those
– uses CRM tool to find their addresses
– copies addresses into spreadsheet, sends emails
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14. A Scenario
• Creates a mashup that collects all that data for her
– SNS automatically generates message
Mrs. Miller: I just created a
new Mashup: My Best
Customers. Take a Look!
Like
• Her contact Mr. Slater sees the messages
– takes a look – has no use for it, but likes the idea: clicks “like”
Mrs. Miller: I just created a
new Mashup: My Best
Customers. Take a Look!
Like
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15. A Scenario
• Mr. Smith is a contact of Mr. Slater, gets noticed of “like”
Mr. Slater: I just liked a
Mashup: My Best Customers.
• Takes a look, thinks it would be useful
– clicks “make my own copy”
– changes zip code, names it “Best Customers for Birmingham”
Mr. Smith: I just copied the Mashup My Best Customers to
a new one: Best Customers for Birmingham
• Mrs. Miller is is happy other people find stuff she made useful
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16. A Scenario
• Mr. Smith is a tinkerer, plays with Mashup tool, finds
macro language
– writes a macro that will send the email for him
• Mrs. Miller gets notified
Mr. Smith updated his Mashup Best Customers for
Birmingham: “Send Email automatically”
Apply Change to My Best Customers?
• Cherry-picks the changes she wants (see GitHub.com)
– need (semi-)automatic creation of independent commits (see e.g.
Hayashi and Saeki 2010)
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17. OUR PROGRESS
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18. Our Progress
End User
Social
Mashup Editor
Network Site
Adapters
Web Scraper Feed Adapter SVN Adapter Trac Adapter
SVN Trac
Web Pages Newsfeeds
Repositories Instances
Application Landscape
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19. Our Progress
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21. Our Progress
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22. Our Progress
End User
SNS
Activity Stream Mashup Tool SNS Service API
Adapters
Web Scraper SVN Adapter ... Wiki Adapter Service Adapter
Web Application
Webanwendung SVN Repository
Webanwendung
... Wiki
Webanwendung SOAP Service
Webanwendung
Application-Landscape
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23. REMAINING TASKS
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24. Remaining Tasks
• Categorization of Service Types
– different requirements & uses
• Task Services
– current VAT, Decision Services – possibly delayed, tied to roles, ...
• Entity Services
– e.g. CRUD Operations
• Process Services
– Processes have a State; User must be able to proceed in Process
• Feed Services
– e.g. for the SNS Timeline
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25. Remaining Tasks
• Wrapper Services / Adapters
• some examples already developed (SVN, Trac, Feeds, ...)
– from our domain
• Insight into real-world enterprise systems is missing
– not easy to obtain
• An Approach for Adapters
– not single technical solutions
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26. Remaining Tasks
• Mashup Editor still barebones
– clean up needed
– Macro Language
– Visualizations of Results
• How to use the Service Types in the Editor?
– can you create process mashups that users can then click through?
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27. CLOSING & DISCUSSION
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28. Closing
• A Spreadsheet-based Mashup Editor
– supporting a Macro Language
– integrated into a company-internal Social Network Site
• Make the Company’s Resources available via adapters
– so End Users can do Data Integration
• Use Mechanisms from Social Software to build and support a
Community of Practice for Mashups
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29. Discussion
• “Tools for making Tools”
– More useful, more potential than mere problem solutions
– Able to solve Problems that are still unknown
– No Support in Mashup Editors for End Users? Google Spreadsheets!
• Have a Story on opening up Enterprise Silos?
– Data Integrity, Confidentiality
Thank you for your attention!
• How to use Social Mechanisms in Research?
– Do I have to prove the “Like”-Button works to use it?
• raise your hand or drop me a line :)
– leif.singer@inf.uni-hannover.de
– twitter.com/lsinger
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30. Attribution
• Faces taken from http://deleket.deviantart.com/art/Face-Avatars-107881096, published
there under the "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported" Creative
Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
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