Crowd Microservices Hackathon: Utilizing Crowdsourcing for Microtask Programming on a Large-Scale

Abstract

Developers in the working community often face the difficulty of training quickly into a new project, especially with new software. Building software through microtask programming offers new opportunities for enabling software developers to more easily join software projects as well as reduce the time to market. In microtask programming, all software development work occurs through microtasks, short self-contained 10 minute tasks. Microtask programming offers new opportunities for software projects by reducing the amount of project knowledge developers must learn to contribute and enabling more work to be done in parallel. To better explore the scalability of microtask programming to realistic software projects, we are currently planning a large-scale virtual ‘hackathon’. Participants will work to build a microservice for “Where”, a map web app for the Mason campus which helps students with finding the way to their classes, finding study spots, and which buses to catch. In the hackathon, participants will use microtask programming to work together on a single software project, offering new insight into the scalability of software projects to more simultaneous contributors.