A Design Method for People-Oriented Programming

Abstract

The miniature Raspberry Pi computer has become of interest to many researchers as a platform for building sociotechnical IoT systems for end-users; however, for the end-user to design and build such apps themselves requires new people-oriented tools and design methods. This chapter describes a people-oriented design method called TANDEM and demonstrates the use of it in detail, by way of a case study—the design of a mashup of services and local data stores—that solves the so-called movie-cinema problem. An implementation of the newly designed movie-cinema app is then built within the DigitalFriend, an end-user programmer IDE. Furthermore, a significant part of the TANDEM design method is then automated within the development tool itself. This automation removes the most skilled task required by TANDEM of the end-user: the automation of the process of data normalization. The automation applies data normalization to the initial model of components and data sources that feed into the mashup. The presentation here relies on some understanding of data normalization, so a simple example is presented. After this demonstrated example of the method and the implementation, the authors discuss the applicability of a model achievable by end-users using TANDEM coupled with the automated normalization process built into the IDE vs. using a top-down model by an experienced information analyst. In conclusion, the TANDEM method combined with the automation as demonstrated does empower an end-user to a significant degree in achieving a workable mashup of distributed services and local data stores and feeds. Such a powerful combination of methods and tools will help the Raspberry Pi to become a significant people-oriented platform, beyond just a platform for teaching novices to code. Furthermore, the TANDEM method does have broader applicability to designing a broad class of logic programs, complementing the use of collected patterns in logic programs.