Related papers: Assessing Developer Beliefs: A Reply to "Perceptio…
Just because software developers say they believe in "X", that does not necessarily mean that "X" is true. As shown here, there exist numerous beliefs listed in the recent Software Engineering literature which are only supported by small…
Software engineering is a highly dynamic discipline. Hence, as times change, so too might our beliefs about core processes in this field. This paper checks some five beliefs that originated in the past decades that comment on the…
A recurring problem in software development is incorrect decision making on the techniques, methods and tools to be used. Mostly, these decisions are based on developers' perceptions about them. A factor influencing people's perceptions is…
Researchers in empirical software engineering often make claims based on observable data such as defect reports. Unfortunately, in many cases, these claims are generalized beyond the data sets that have been evaluated. Will the researcher's…
Context: Empirical Software Engineering (ESE) drives innovation in SE through qualitative and quantitative studies. However, concerns about the correct application of empirical methodologies have existed since the 2006 Dagstuhl seminar on…
As any scientific discipline, the software engineering (SE) research community strives to contribute to the betterment of the target population of our research: software producers and consumers. We will only achieve this betterment if we…
CONTEXT: There is growing interest in establishing software engineering as an evidence-based discipline. To that end, replication is often used to gain confidence in empirical findings, as opposed to reproduction where the goal is showing…
Background: The state of the art in software engineering consists of a myriad of contributions and the gaps between them; it is difficult to characterize. Questions: In order to help understanding the state of the art, can we identify gaps…
Human error research on overconfidence supports the benefits of early visibility of defects and disciplined development. If risk to the enterprise is to be reduced, individuals need to become aware of the reality of the quality of their…
Background: This invited paper is the result of an invitation to write a retrospective article on a "TSE most influential paper" as part of the journal's 50th anniversary. Objective: To reflect on the progress of software engineering…
For more than thirty years, it has been claimed that a way to improve software developers' productivity and software quality is to focus on people. The underlying assumption seems to be that "happy and satisfied software developers perform…
Integrating research evidence into practice is one of the main goals of Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE). Secondary studies, one of the main EBSE products, are intended to summarize the best research evidence and make them easily…
Software engineering (SE) is full of abstract concepts that are crucial for both researchers and practitioners, such as programming experience, team productivity, code comprehension, and system security. Secondary studies aimed at…
Software engineering is not an empirically based discipline. Consequently, many of its practices are based on little more than a generally agreed feeling that something may be true. Part of the problem is that it is both relatively young…
The study of affects (i.e., emotions, moods) in the workplace has received a lot of attention in the last 15 years. Despite the fact that software development has been shown to be intellectual, creative, and driven by cognitive activities,…
While mastered by some, good scientific writing practices within Empirical Software Engineering (ESE) research appear to be seldom discussed and documented. Despite this, these practices are implicit or even explicit evaluation criteria of…
Failure studies are important in revealing the root causes, behaviors, and life cycle of defects in software systems. These studies either focus on understanding the characteristics of defects in specific classes of systems or the…
Context: Software engineering has a problem in that when we empirically evaluate competing prediction systems we obtain conflicting results. Objective: To reduce the inconsistency amongst validation study results and provide a more formal…
Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of human aspects in software development. Since qualitative methods are used to explore human behavior in-depth, we believe that studies using such methods will become more common.…
Affects---emotions and moods---have an impact on cognitive processing activities and the working performance of individuals. It has been established that software development tasks are undertaken through cognitive processing activities.…