Andrew Ko
Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:54:12 -0700
It is true that many academics prefer the mathematical approach. But I've also spoken to several dozen over the years with other perspectives. For example, much of the funding outside the US is biased towards certain SE problems and approaches. I don't know why this bias persists, but it affects the work that gets done. Many faculty, when thinking of their tenure case, are hindered by the expectations of their CS faculty peers, choosing problems and methods that seem legitimate from outsiders' perspective. Another interesting factor is the skillset of many academic researchers. Many realize that to explore human factors in SE requires skills that they never learned. Worse yet, disciplinary boundaries in universities prevent collaborations that would fill this gap.
I think the actual number of researchers who want to explore and account for human factors in their research is far greater than the number that actually do (and succeed). The rest face a number of long standing barriers outside their direct control. Some of us have to take the risk of breaching these barriers before others will feel safe to do the same.
Andy • • • • • • • • • • • • Ph.D. Candidate HCI Institute Carnegie Mellon University http://www.andrewko.net [Sent from my iPhone] On Oct 12, 2007, at 8:18 AM, Derek M Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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 Europeanconference 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 engineeringculture. Many of the people involved in don't feel they have to changeand there is no real pressure to change. So academic SE is stuck in the deep hole of being staffed by peopleinterested 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 inthe proposition that we, software engineers, must be well educated incomputer science, but the field of science to which the above mentionedproblems belong is not mathematics, but psychology (which includessociology, etc.). The extended abstract to the conference is available onrequest.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 the questions asked. -- Hanania -----Original Message-----From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf OfNick 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 competingsoftware 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/
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