Andrew Begel andrew.begel@microsoft.com Office Phone: +1 (425) 705-1816 Office Fax: +1 (425) 936-7329

Bio

I am a researcher in the Human Interactions in Programming Group at Microsoft Research. My research applies HCI techniques to improve the software development process. I study collaborative software development, Agile methodologies, user-centered interfaces for search and developer awareness, and K-16 and beyond programming education. I mainly work with Rob DeLine, Gina Venolia, Kael Rowan, and Nachi Nagappan. I have hosted several interns at Microsoft Research: Libby Hemphill, Chris Poile, Lucas Layman, and Reid Holmes. I received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2005. I studied with Susan L. Graham. My dissertation was about voice-based programming, how to build a development environment that supports it, and how well programmers can use it. It is intended for programmers with repetitive strain and other injuries that make it difficult for them from using the keyboard and mouse in their daily work. For the quick punch-line, read my dissertation abstract below. I also work on StarLogo, a programmable modeling environment designed to help students learn about science. StarLogo runs on PCs, Macs and Unix machines. A new version of StarLogo, called StarLogo TNG, incorporates graphical block-based programming and a 3D turtle world to teach programming by enabling kids to create their own games and simulations. Education in computer science has always been important to me. Along with Steven Wolfman, Daniel D. Garcia and Rebecca Bates, I have led workshops on Kinesthetic Learning Activities, physically engaging classroom exercises that teach computer science concepts.

Research

Title: Human Interactions in Programming Projects: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Flow, Cognitive Aspects of Programming, Naming in Computer Programs Links: [PPIG 2006 Paper] [HIP Research Group] Title: Knowledge Acquisition and Learning on Software Teams Projects: Remote Onboarding, Struggles of New College Graduates in Software Engineering, Computer-Mediated Preemptive Mentoring Links: [SIGCSE 2008 Talk] [SIGCSE 2008 Paper] [MS Faculty Summit 2007 Poster] [CSCW Workshop Paper] Title: Agile Development Methodologies Projects: Surveys of Agile Development at Microsoft Links: [ESEM 2008 Paper] [ESEM 2007 Paper] Title: Software Development Team Coordination Projects: Studies of globally distributed software application teams Links: [ICGSE 2008 Paper] [CHASE 2008 Paper] Title: Code Investigation Tools Projects: Deep Intellisense: Visual Studio Plugin Links: [MSR 2008 Paper] Title: Search Tools Projects: Codifier: Developer-Centric Code Search Links: [HCIR 2007 Paper] Title: Programming by Voice Projects: Code Dictation, Editing by Voice, SPEED: SPEech EDitor, Commenting by Voice, User Studies, Harmonia Links: [Ph.D. Dissertation] [SPEED Movie (700 MB)] [VL/HCC 2006 Paper] [VL/HCC 2005 Paper] [VL/HCC 2005 Talk] [AVIOS 2005 Paper] [AVIOS 2005 Talk] [SIGCSE 2002 Talk] [VL/HCC 2004 Talk] [Software Engineering Class Project Commenting By Voice Report] [Harmonia] Title: Language Analysis and Tools for Ambiguous Input Streams Projects: Blender Lexer and Parser Generator, Harmonia Links: [LDTA 2004 Paper] [LDTA 2004 Talk] [Harmonia] Title: Semantic Disambiguation Projects: Inheritance Graph-based Persistent, Incremental Semantic Analysis, Harmonia Links: [Garrison Dissertation] [Language Plugin Generation] [Harmonia] Title: Harmonia Program Analysis Toolkit Projects: Incremental Lexer, Parser, Semantic Analyses for Java, C, Scheme, Cool Links: [Harmonia] [Download It] Title: StarLogo Projects: MacStarLogo Classic, StarLogo, StarLogo TNG, Adventures in Modeling Workshops Links: [Journal of E-Learning 2007 Paper] [Kybernetes Journal 2003 Paper] [StarLogo Home Page] [StarLogo TNG Home Page] [Adventures in Modeling Home Page] Title: Older Projects Projects: BPF+ Packet Filter, Active Messages over VIA, Object-oriented Type Evolution (at Xerox PARC), Titanium, YoYo Links: [BPF+: SIGCOMM 1999 Paper] [SIGCOMM 99 Talk] [AM over VIA: Concurrency and Computation 2002 Paper] [OO Type Evolution: WET-ICE 1999 Paper] [Titanium Home Page] [YoYo Home Page]

Publications

Human Factors of Software Development Research Andrew Begel, Nachiappan Nagappan. Pair Programming: What's in it for me?. To appear in the 2nd International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), Kaiserslautern, Germany. October 2008. [pdf] Andrew Begel, Nachiappan Nagappan. Global Software Development: Who Does It?. To appear in the International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), Bangalore, India. August 2008. [pdf] Andrew Begel. Effecting Change: Coordination in Large-Scale Software Development. In the Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), Leipzig, Germany. May 2008. [pdf] Lucas Layman, Nachiappan Nagappan, Sam Guckenheimer, Jeff Beehler, Andrew Begel. Mining Software Effort Data: Preliminary Analysis of Visual Studio Team System Data. In the 5th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), Leipzig, Germany. May 2008. [pdf] Reid Holmes, Andrew Begel. Deep Intellisense: A Tool for Rehydrating Evaporated Information. In the 5th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), Leipzig, Germany. May 2008. [pdf] Andrew Begel. Codifier: A Programmer-Centric Search User Interface. In the Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval (HCIR), Cambridge, MA. October 2007. [pdf] Andrew Begel and Nachiappan Nagappan Usage and Perceptions of Agile Software Development in an Industrial Context: An Exploratory Study. In the First International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Metrics (ESEM), Madrid, Spain, September 2007. [pdf] Andrew Begel. Help, I Need Somebody! In the CSCW Workshop: Supporting the Social Side of Large-Scale Software Development, Banff, Alberta, Canada, November 2006. [pdf] Ben Liblit, Andrew Begel and Eve Sweetser. Cognitive Perspectives on the Role of Naming in Computer Programs. In the 18th Annual Psychology of Programming Interest Group Workshop, Brighton, UK, September 2006. [pdf] Andrew Begel and Susan L. Graham. Assessment of a Speech-Based Programming Environment. In the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Brighton, UK, September 2006. [pdf] SPEED Movie: [mov (700 MB)] Andrew Begel and Susan L. Graham. Spoken Programs. In the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Dallas, Texas, September 2005. [pdf] [ppt] Andrew Begel. Programming by Voice: A Domain-specific Application of Speech Recognition. In AVIOS Speech Technology Symposium - SpeechTek West. February 2005. [pdf] [ppt] Michael Toomim, Andrew Begel and Susan L. Graham. Managing Duplicated Code with Linked Editing. In the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Rome, Italy, September 2004. [VL/HCC 2004] [pdf] Slides: [ppt] Programming and Systems Research Andrew Begel and Susan L. Graham. XGLR - An Algorithm for Ambiguity in Programming Languages. In the Science of Computer Programs, (61) 3, pp. 211-227, May 2006. [pdf] Andrew Begel, Marat Boshernitsan, and Susan L. Graham. Transformational Generation of Language Plug-ins in the Harmonia Framework. Technical Report CSD-05-1370, University of California, Berkeley, January 2005 [pdf] Andrew Begel and Susan L. Graham. Language Analysis and Tools for Ambiguous Input Streams. In the Fourth Workshop on Language Descriptions, Tools and Applications, ENTCS (110) pp. 75-96, Barcelona, Spain, April 2004. (LDTA 2004) [pdf] Slides: [ppt] [pdf] Andrew Begel, Philip Buonadonna, David Culler, and David Gay. An Analysis of VI Architecture Primitives in Support of Parallel and Distributed Communication. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience (14) 1. January 2002. [pdf]. Andrew Begel, Steven McCanne, and Susan L. Graham. BPF+: Exploiting Global Data-flow Optimization in a Generalized Packet Filter Architecture. In the Proceedings of SIGCOMM '99. [ps]. Slides: [ppt] [html] [ps] Mike Spreitzer and Andrew Begel. More Flexible Data Types. In the Proceedings of The Eighth IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises [WET-ICE'99]. [ps] [pdf]. Education Research Andrew Begel and Beth Simon. Struggles of New College Graduates in their First Software Development Job. In the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2008. [pdf] [pptx] Andrew Begel, Rebecca Bates, and Steven A. Wolfman. Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. Held at the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2006. Workshop. [SIGCSE 2006] Website [url] Andrew Begel and Eric Klopfer. StarLogo TNG: An Introduction to Game Development In the Journal of E-Learning. In Press. [pdf] Andrew Begel and Eric Klopfer . StarLogo: A Programmable Complex Systems Modeling Environment for Students and Teachers.. In A. Adamatzky and M. Komosinki, Eds. Artificial Life Models in Software. Springer. July 2005. [Book chapter] Andrew Begel, Daniel D. Garcia, and Steven A. Wolfman. Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. Held at the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2005. Workshop. [SIGCSE 2005] Website [url] Eric Klopfer, Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Brian Silverman, Andrea diSessa, Andrew Begel and Chris Hancock. Programming Revisited - The Educational Value of Computer Programming. In International Conference on Learning Sciences. Los Angeles, California, June 2004. Panel. [ICLS 2004] [pdf] Slides: [1. ppt] [2. ppt] Andrew Begel, Daniel D. Garcia, and Steven A. Wolfman. Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. In the Proceedings of the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2004. Special Session. [SIGCSE 2004] [pdf] Slides: [ppt] Poster: [pdf] Website [url] Eric Klopfer and Andrew Begel. StarLogo in the Classroom and Under the Hood. Kybernetes (32) 1/2. January 2003. [pdf] Theses Andrew Begel. Spoken Language Support for Software Development. Ph.D. Thesis. University of California, Berkeley. December 19, 2005. [pdf] Andrew Begel. Bongo, a Kids' Programming Environment for Creating Video Games on the Web. Master's Thesis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. May 23, 1997. [pdf] [html] Andrew Begel. LogoBlocks: A Graphical Programming Language for Interacting with the World. Advanced Undergraduate Project. Massachuesetts Institute of Technology. May 24, 1996. [pdf] [html]

Talks

Paper Talks CHASE 2008. Effecting Change: Coordination in Large-Scale Software Development. May 13, 2008 (pptx) SIGCSE 2008. Struggles of New College Graduates in their First Software Development Job. Paper Presentation. March 14, 2008 (pptx) ESEM 2007. Usage and Perceptions of Agile Software Development in an Industrial Context: An Exploratory Study. Paper Presentation. September 17, 2007 (ppt) PPIG 2006. Cognitive Perspectives on the Role of Naming in Computer Programs. Paper Presentation. September 7, 2006 (ppt) VL/HCC 2006. Assessment of a Speech-Based Programming Environment. Paper Presentation. September 6, 2006. (ppt) SPEED Movie (mov) 700 MB VL/HCC 2005. Spoken Programs. Paper Presentation. September 22, 2005. (ppt) AVIOS at SpeechTek West. Programming by Voice: A Domain-specific Application of Speech Recognition. Paper Presentation. February 22, 2005. (ppt) LDTA 2004. Language Analysis and Tools for Ambiguous Input Streams. Paper Presentation. April 3, 2004. (ppt) (pdf) SIGCOMM 1999. BPF+: Exploiting Global Data-flow Optimization in a Generalized Packet Filter Architecture. September 2, 1999. (ppt) (html) (ps). Panels ICLS 2004 Programming Revisited - The Educational Value of Computer Programming. Panel. June 25, 2004. (ppt) Workshops CS&IT 2007 Program Your Own Games with XNA. Presented with Krishna Kumar. June 28, 2007. (ppt) CS&IT 2006 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. July 8, 2006. (ppt) SIGCSE 2006 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. March 3, 2006. (ppt) CS&IT 2005 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. June 26, 2005. (ppt) CS&IT 2005 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. February 26, 2005. (ppt) SIGCSE 2005 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. February 25, 2005. (ppt) SIGCSE 2004 Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. March 5, 2004. (ppt) Invited Talks Agitar Software. "HIP" Tools for Software Development. April 27, 2007. (ppt). Agent Simulation: Applications, Models and Tools. StarLogo: Building a Modeling Construction Kit for Kids. October 16, 1999. (ppt). Santa Fe Institute Workshop on GIS Systems and Modeling. StarLogo: Massive Parallelism for the Masses. March 20-21, 1998. (ppt). Doctoral Consortia VL/HCC 2004 Spoken Language Support for Software Development. Talk given at the Graduate Student Consortium. September 28, 2004. (ppt) SIGCSE 2002 Spoken Language Support for Software Development. Talk given at the Doctoral Consortium. February 27, 2002. (ppt) Education Talks Spring 2005 Orientation and Teaching Conference for Graduate Student Instructors. Ran a workshop for new EECS GSIs. January 14, 2005. (html). CS 301 Talk: What Makes a Great TA?. September 13, 2004. Fall 2004 Orientation and Teaching Conference for Graduate Student Instructors. Ran a workshop for new EECS GSIs. August 27, 2004. (html). CS 301 Lecture: How to be a Great TA. February 8, 2002. (html) Spring 2002 Orientation and Teaching Conference for Graduate Student Instructors. Ran a workshop for new Quantitative Science GSIs. January 17, 2002. (html). Fall 2001 Orientation and Teaching Conference for Graduate Student Instructors. Ran a workshop for new EECS GSIs. August 24, 2001. (html). CS 301 Lecture: How to Be a Good TA. November 3, 2000. (html). Fall 2000 Orientation and Teaching Conference for Graduate Student Instructors. Ran a workshop for new EECS GSIs. August 25, 2000. (html). CS 301 Lecture: How to Be a Good TA. October 22, 1999. (html).

Teaching

I taught an after-school program to four 8th grade boys to teach them about complex systems and how to program in StarLogo. At first it was slow-going for some of the kids, but by the end, all really understood programming, and half of them understood complex systems! In Spring 2001, I co-designed and co-taught CS301: Teaching Techniques for Computer Science, with Dan Garcia. CS301 is a class to teach first-time TAs in the Computer Science Division how to be the greatest TAs they can be. It was truly awesome. In Spring 2000, I helped out my friend Laura Allen by being a workshop leader for the TechGyrl's '99 program. I put together a collection of ideas (that I snagged and rearranged from Gary Stager's Logo page) for Microworlds Logo and Lego Dacta. In Spring 2000, I TAd (GSId) CS164, a class called Introduction to Compilers. It's for junior/senior-level Berkeley undergrads. In Fall 1997, I TAd CS61a, the intro CS course at Berkeley. It's taught by Brian Harvey. CS61a is a Berkeley port of 6.001, which I took at MIT in 1993. It uses the Scheme programming language to introduce students to the zen of programming. After this course, learning any other programming language is cake.

Personal

I grew up in southeastern New York, in Rockland County. I've lived in NY, Boston, San Francisco and now Seattle. The rectangle of my life is now complete. For more information (and pictures), see my personal home page.