Federico Gobbo

The Pomodoro Technique for Sustainable Pace in Extreme Programming Teams

One of the common challenges of an Extreme Programming (XP) team is to find strategies so to reinforce practices and increase velocity. Most practices have found at least one optimal strategy tested and approved practically by the community, while ‘sustainable pace’ is core tenet missing a clear strategy. The aim of the Pomodoro Technique (PT) is exactly to fill this gap. The PT is a timeboxing strategy originally meant for optimizing personal work and study and then applied to XP. The PT is widely applied by Italian Agile teams, but is still little known elsewhere. This paper examines how the PT is applied by them and how it integrates with XP.

From Ancient to Modern Computing: A History of Information Hiding

This article proposes a methodological approach to the historiography of computing in terms of information hiding--that is, the introduction of levels of abstraction (LoAs) between the human being and the computing machine. This approach applies the LoAs, in terms of the epistemological levelism proposed within the philosophy of information, to the transition from ancient to modern computing. In particular, the black-box metaphor and von Neumanns architectures are discussed. Also, the authors propose a formal LoAs method as a mathematical counterpart. Information itself is then treated as structure-preserving functions so that a LoA can distinguish what kind of information gets hidden when human beings interact with computing machines.

Linguistic Justice, van Parijs, and Esperanto

Abstract In the European and world-wide scenario of linguistic justice offered by van Parijs (2011), it is argued that we need one lingua franca only and that the only suitable candidate is English. In order to sustain his argument, the author has to reject three known alternatives against the English-only scenario. The second alternative is Esperanto. Van Parijs argues that there are some inner defects in the Esperanto language, and therefore Esperanto is not suitable for the role of world-wide lingua franca. This paper offers counterarguments based on the evidence of facts, showing that if nowadays Esperanto is only a lesser-used language the reason is not in the inner traits of the language, rather in geopolitical decisions. I argue that in the most probable global scenario English still plays the actual major role, but along with other cultural languages being regional lingua francas.

Why zombies cannot write significant source code: The Knowledge Game and the art of computer programming

This article analyses the knowledge needed to understand a computer program within the philosophy of information. L. Floridis method of levels of abstraction is applied to the relation between an ideal programmer and a modern computer seen together as an informational organism. The results obtained by the mental experiment known as the Knowledge Game are applied to this relation, so to explain what a programmer should know in order to program a modern computer. In particular, this analysis clearly shows why non-conscious agents have no hopes to write significant programs. Two main objections are then presented and attacked by corresponding counterobjections.

Algorithms and Their Explanations

By analysing the explanation of the classical heapsort algorithm via the method of levels of abstraction mainly due to Floridi, we give a concrete and precise example of how to deal with algorithmic knowledge. To do so, we introduce a concept already implicit in the method, the ‘gradient of explanations’. Analogously to the gradient of abstractions, a gradient of explanations is a sequence of discrete levels of explanation each one refining the previous, varying formalisation, and thus providing progressive evidence for hidden information. Because of this sequential and coherent uncovering of the information that explains a level of abstraction—the heapsort algorithm in our guiding example—the notion of gradient of explanations allows to precisely classify purposes in writing software according to the informal criterion of depth’, and to give a precise meaning to the notion of ‘concreteness’.

An Investigation of the Impact of a Social Constructivist Teaching Approach, based on Trigger Questions, Through Measures of Mental Workload and Efficiency

Social constructivism is grounded on the construction of information with a focus on collaborative learning through social interactions. However, it tends to ignore the human mental architecture, pillar of cognitivism. A characteristic of cognitivism is that instructional designs built upon it are generally explicit, contrarily to constructivism. This position paper proposes a novel learning task that is aimed at combining both the approaches through the use of trigger questions in a collaborative activity executed after a traditional delivery of instructions. To evaluate this new task, a metric of efficiency based upon a measure of mental workload and a measure of performance is proposed. The former measure is taken from Ergonomics, and two well know subjective self-reporting mental workload assessment techniques are envisioned. The latter measure is taken from an objective quantitative assessment of the performance of learners employing concept maps.

The Assessment of Sociolinguistic Justice: Parameters and Models of Analysis

This paper argues that the assessment of sociolinguistic justice should pass through the promotion of linguistic ease, analysed through a number of sociolinguistic parameters already used for the repertoires of multilingual communities. Their consideration permits to tackle the complexity of globalising and localising forces, beyond the Westphalian model of nation-state. In particular, three axes of analysis should be taken into account: the formality of situations, the sense of belonging, and special domains, like school and writing.

The Lexicography of Esperanto

In recent years the focus in linguistics research has shifted from the investigation of syntax, phonology and logical semantics supported by intuitions and speculation, to a more hard-nosed analysis of words in text and speech, focusing on how words are actually used. As such, lexicography has moved from the periphery to the centre of language research. At the same time, lexicography itself is in transition from a highly traditional craft, to a new interdisciplinary science. This handbook contrasts traditional methods of lexicography with newly emerging electronic and corpus-driven approaches. The International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography is a fully international and comprehensive reference work. It deals with every aspect of lexicography in all major languages, together with area studies of lexicography in indigenous languages, as well as rare and endangered languages. Readers will benefit from the comparative study of best practice and future targets in lexicography in all the countries of the world. The Springer Handbook will be of interest to users ranging from general readers and undergraduates to specialists from the fields of lexicography, language teaching, computational linguistics, translation studies, and literary and cultural studies.

Requirements and Open Issues for ISs Supporting Dynamic Community Bonding in Emergency Situations

Studies show that in emergency situations, like in the aftermath of natural disasters, people tend to self-organize into so-called ephemeral organizations and transitional communities based on common problems, common places, etc. Strict interactions among victims, fundamental to strengthen such small communities, may be efficiently supported by a new generation of mobile-empowered disaster management systems based on the social networking approach, with crowd-generated and geo-referenced data. In this paper we discuss how a shift of perspective in the interaction, conceptual, logical and physical models adopted for the social network can efficiently support the dynamic bonding/de-bonding/re-bonding of communities that emerge based on alliances around shared problems and/or objectives.

Alan Turing creator of Artificial Languages

Bilingual article. (En / Eo) In this paper an evaluation of the contribution to philosophical investigation by Alan Turing is provided in terms of creation of Artificial Languages (ALs). After a discussion of the term AL in the literature, and in particular within the theoretical model offered by Lyons, the legacy of Turing is presented with a special attention to what remains after a century by his birth and what is still to be investigated in this area.