Wasn't AI supposed to make software development easier? Yes: with the right guardrails and practices, routine programming tasks can now be handed off to an LLM. And no: something else is happening at the same time. I've heard from a few developers now that the work
Paper Jams
We'll be meeting for Paper Jam #15 on Friday, March 27 at 2pm UTC. This month we're looking at the following paper: Judy Hanwen Shen, Alex Tamkin How AI Impacts Skill Formation (2026) [link] This paper reports on a between-subjects randomized experiment that investigates how AI
Do large language models trained on human data respond to the same psychological levers that sway us? Once a month, I meet with subscribers to my site's Paper Jam plan to discuss a paper about The Experience of Making Software. This post reports on Paper Jam #10. Thank
I love working on meaningful things with others. It's how I feel connected with the rest of humanity. And it's when looking beyond my immediate community or organization that I tend to find the most surprising or interesting connections. When I was still in academia, it
Software developers use computers not only for writing programs — they also use them to communicate and collaborate with one another. Software development is very much a social activity: collaboration and communication activities can have a powerful impact on the success of software projects. Computer-support for these activities is not restricted
When you build software, sooner or later you will want to think about human behavior — most notably about what motivates humans. I don’t mean Skinner boxes, points and ladders, variable reward schedules and the like as you might find them in “free to play but we have an in-game
If you build software products, chances are that you’ve worried about adoption before. Will anyone use what I’ve built? How can I get more people to use it? And why do people leave after a few days? Many people have written about this problem, and there are indeed
Developers use many, many tools to collaborate. Those tools solve problems, but also create new challenges: distractions impede productivity, developers struggle to keep up with everything, or partially adopted tools — those are just a few examples. But how can we tackle those problems? In this post, I share six recommendations
Software developers use many tools to support their work. They coordinate with their teams on code hosting sites, interface with non-developers in project management apps, use microblogs to network, and learn through Q&A sites and podcasts. They do derive value from those tools — but what problems and challenges
On the Experience of Making Software.
What factors make developers working in teams thrive? Context: once a month, I meet with subscribers to the Paper Jam plan of my blog to discuss a paper at the intersection of topics such as computer-supported collaborative work, software engineering, human-computer interaction, and psychology. This post reports on Paper Jam
How do identity, content, and interaction transparency affect online interactions and collaboration? Context: once a month, I meet with subscribers to the Paper Jam plan of my blog to discuss a paper at the intersection of topics such as computer-supported collaborative work, software engineering, human-computer interaction, and psychology. This post
I love working on meaningful things with others. It's how I feel connected with the rest of humanity. And it's when looking beyond my immediate community or organization that I tend to find the most surprising or interesting connections. When I was still in academia, it
Software developers use computers not only for writing programs — they also use them to communicate and collaborate with one another. Software development is very much a social activity: collaboration and communication activities can have a powerful impact on the success of software projects. Computer-support for these activities is not restricted
When you build software, sooner or later you will want to think about human behavior — most notably about what motivates humans. I don’t mean Skinner boxes, points and ladders, variable reward schedules and the like as you might find them in “free to play but we have an in-game
If you build software products, chances are that you’ve worried about adoption before. Will anyone use what I’ve built? How can I get more people to use it? And why do people leave after a few days? Many people have written about this problem, and there are indeed
Developers use many, many tools to collaborate. Those tools solve problems, but also create new challenges: distractions impede productivity, developers struggle to keep up with everything, or partially adopted tools — those are just a few examples. But how can we tackle those problems? In this post, I share six recommendations
Software developers use many tools to support their work. They coordinate with their teams on code hosting sites, interface with non-developers in project management apps, use microblogs to network, and learn through Q&A sites and podcasts. They do derive value from those tools — but what problems and challenges
Studies have shown that about 30% to 50% of what we do in a day can be called habitual [1]. However, adopting new habits is hard: at least I have always struggled with making things stick. But now I think I’ve found something that works for me. It’s
Software developers use more and more tools in their work. Some are directly aimed at creating software, such as IDEs or editors, but many tools play more supportive roles. They help developers communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with others, find new work, or keep up with new technologies. All these tools
Lots of research in software engineering is using publicly-available data from GitHub nowadays. But do findings from such studies translate to closed-sourced development projects? After all, open source development has established a few practices and social conventions that might not be found in companies. In addition, GitHub lends itself to
A few days ago, my piano teacher recommended a book to me: Play It Again: An Amateur Against The Impossible by Alan Rusbridger [commission earned], formerly editor-in-chief of The Guardian. I devoured it within three days. Rusbridger recounts how over about 18 months, he learned playing Chopin’s Ballade No.
