Programmers ’ Receptive Attitude toward Code Sharing and their Use of Computer-Mediated Communication Systems

ABSTRACT- One way for programmers to improve their work is to share code with peers. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems, such as e-mail, or the World Wide Web (WWW), may facilitate the process of code sharing provided that programmers are receptive toward the process. Upon a mail survey with 730 professional programmers, the study discovered three items of what programmers attain through CMC systems: (1) task-related, (2) socio-emotional and (3) exploring accomplishments. In addition, only among the programmers whose work involves actual code reviews was their receptivity toward code sharing correlated with their use of CMC systems for task-related purposes. The correlation with other accomplishments was not statistically significant. Discussions on the results ’ conceptual and practical contributions are addressed in the final section