Paper short abstract:

How do programmers use software applications to create, process and handle the data circulating through the web today? This paper will explore the question above by looking at how a specific community of programmers conceptualizes and practices data handling through software.

Paper long abstract:

How do programmers use software applications to create, process and handle the data circulating through the web today? This paper will contribute to that question by looking into the practices of a specific community of programmers, namely Ruby programmers.

Ruby is a programming language that was created in Japan in 1993 by Yukihiro Matsumoto. Although created as a scripting language, Ruby became popular as a web development language after the creation of the Ruby on Rails. Major web companies such as AirBnb, Soundcloud, Twitte, and, notably, Github, use Ruby and Rails up to this day. In this paper, I will focus on one specific library - a small program that can be used by other programs - created in the Rails context, namely Active Record. Active Record is an Object Relational Mapper (ORM) and it provides a connection between an application and its database. Briefly, an ORM allows a programmer to easily manipulate data by creating, editing, or destroying database records.

Active Record is famous in the ruby community for having created a specific Ruby style of writing ruby. Some rubyists describe it as one of the most useful and beautiful ruby scripts ever created. As such, Active Record provides us with a clear and concise object in which to think through how Ruby developers handle and process the data created and received by software applications in a web environment.

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The paper is based on ongoing fieldwork with Ruby programmers and therefore a work in progress.