As one of many working to shed light on the human side of software
engineering in academia, I thought I'd raise a few points.
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
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 the
questions asked. --
Hanania
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[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 far
more 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 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk
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