Bjorn Reese wrote:
> This made me wonder. Do we have any empirical evidence for the fundamental
> principles of software engineering, such as abstraction, encapsulation,
> polymorphism, and separation of concerns?
>
> For example, the unconditional usefulness of abstraction is usually regarded
> as indisputable fact. If you as much as question this dogma, you risk being
> burnt at the stake. However, the only evidence I have been presented has
> been based on advocacy, anecdote, and authority. An appealing thing about
> Cognitive Dimensions is that it portrays a more nuanced, and in my opinion
> more believable, picture of abstraction.
That's true. And several people in PPIG continue to do work on the
nature of abstraction, including empirical studies. Thomas Green
and I presented one such paper at PPIG'99:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/publications/PPIG99.html
this followed some earlier ideas on abstraction:
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/projects/twd/mypapers/BPS-3rd-thinking.html
These papers might be a little on the philosophical side (or just
badly written, depending on your taste) - a more recent summary
of this material, summarising some practical empirical work on
abstraction users, is at:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/vital/overview.html
> Has anybody ever studied the benefits of Design Patterns with the basic
> scientific methods, such as comparing the performance of a group using
> Design Patterns with a control group? Has anybody ever studied how
> applicable Extreme Programming is to other environments and domains that
> the small, fast-moving software environments it was developed for (has
> it even been studied there)?
The PPIG meeting last week included a study of Extreme
Programming, which stimulated some vigorous debate. Sorry I
don't have time now to report on it at length - perhaps someone
else might like to summarise the discussion? The original paper
will be archived on the PPIG site before long, I'm sure.
Alan
--
Alan Blackwell Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/afb21/ Phone: +44 (0) 1223 334418
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