Hi Derek, Is it your disbelief that this work is not sufficiently informing software engineering practice, or is it that the PPIG/ESP community (or 'academic' community in general) has not done important work on languages, tools and notations? I'm not quite sure about which one you refer to.
It's always useful to receive input from those who are working with real systems. You write: > academics don't have a clue about the issues that are important in commercial > software development We're listening and are willing to be informed. > why be an academic investigating these problems when you could be paid more in > industry to do it? If you work within such an environment that allows an analysis of the performance of one methodology or team design over another, for example, then this is a fantastic opportunity. I personally don't have much of an opportunity to do very much other than trying to produce an upgrade to existing software systems so they work within the latest operating systems or browsers. We do some 'pragmatic' research i.e. how to construct installations. If you know of interesting problems being attacked in industry, tell us... This is exactly what David's workshop would like to hear about. > like people in the commercial world academics want to get on in the world I totally agree. Do you have concerns about the usefulness of 'pure' research? Just like academics have to conform to research 'agendas', employees within industry have to fit into a corporate 'culture' and be proactive, whatever that is. Perhaps I misunderstand you... > academics do research that interests them Again, I agree. Ideally, people within industry also do the jobs/programming that interests them. Nothing worse than being in a job you don't particularly enjoy. If some academics are fired up about the complexities and difficulties inherent in the development and deployment of large systems, I would expect them to seek out and find organisations in the real world that allow them to further understand the issues that they have an facination with. In some cases, this would involve direct liaison with commercial organisations. > The people involved [in academia] have little applicable knowledge and the social > forces > involved are not pushing them in the appropriate direction. It's up to people like you to tell us what issues we should be looking at! What do you think is important? Best wishes, Chris -----Original Message----- From: Derek M Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 08 August 2003 17:30 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: PPIG discuss: Re: PPIG announce: STEP Workshop: Where's the Evidence? All, >Following on from the highly successful joint PPIG/EASE workshop in Keele at >Easter, why not join with the Empirical Software Engineering community to >discuss issues pertaining to evidence? > >The PPIG community has done important work on the tools used by software >engineers, for example, on programming languages and notations. However, >PPIG shares a concern with the Empirical Software Engineering community that >this work is not sufficiently informing software engineering practice. One >reason might be that the work is not sufficiently visible to practitioners; >another might be scepticism as to the external validity of our results. Complete disbelief would not be too strong a way of putting it. The obvious problem is that many academics (well at least the majority of the ones I have spoken to in any depth) don't have a clue about the issues that are important in commercial software development. However, this is just the symptom of other underlying issues. For instance: o why be an academic investigating these problems when you could be paid more in industry to do it? o just like people in the commercial world academics want to get on in the world. This means fitting in with existing research 'agendas' (which are rarely commercially oriented; "it will be relevant in future years", ha ha). o academics do research that interests them (and why not, they ought to get something out of taking a lower paid job). I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there is a very low probability of any solutions to software engineering problems coming from academia. The people involved have little applicable knowledge and the social forces involved are not pushing them in the appropriate direction. derek -- Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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/
