Derek M Jones
Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:20:13 -0700
Hanania,
In the paper that I mentioned in a previous posting, Wieringa claimed that much of the Software Engineering (SE) research does not apply scientific methods. Not only that I agreed with him, but I claimed that the situation is even worth than that; in many of the SE papers the underlying research questions are not scientific. I presented this position in the 2007 European conference on Computing and Philosophy.
I agree with what you say about the problem (I would throw out a large chunk of the mathematical approach to the solution proposed in your paper). There is a serious problem with the academic software engineering culture. Many of the people involved in don't feel they have to change and there is no real pressure to change. So academic SE is stuck in the deep hole of being staffed by people interested in the mathematical approach and uninterested in experiments, with industry sucking out all of the practical oriented people, and a reward system that favours the status quo.
The core science that universities teach to would be software engineers is computer science. The anecdotes presented in earlier postings of this thread indicated the existence of a problem for which computer science does not seem to be the source of cure. The community of PPIG may be interested in the proposition that we, software engineers, must be well educated in computer science, but the field of science to which the above mentioned problems belong is not mathematics, but psychology (which includes sociology, etc.). The extended abstract to the conference is available on request. So, Nick, the answer that I humbly offer to your question is two fold. One, Wieringa provides a rather detailed answer, which I couldn't write better. Two, what makes science what it is, is not only the methods but thequestions asked. --Hanania -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nick Flor Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 13:46 To: Hanania Salzer; discuss@ppig.org Subject: RE: PPIG discuss: When agile goes bad.... Hanania, what scientific methods would you propose to evaluate competing software development perspectives?BTW, I think Fleck's "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact" is farmore relevant to the discussion of method adoption than Kuhn's.- Nick-- Nick V. Flor, PhD Associate Professor, Information Systems Anderson School of Management University of New Mexico [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- Derek M. Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/