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erikars's review against another edition
3.0
Like many collections of works, the quality in this volume varied. I only remember one of the articles being particularly bad. A worthwhile number stand out as good.
The first four articles cover how to read software engineering research. I wish that I had read it in grad school. If you find yourself reading academic papers in computer science, it's worth reading these four articles.
The rest of the articles cover research about different areas of software engineering. If you're like me, your opinion of each article will be partially influenced by its quality and partially influenced by your interest in the topic. That said, there was a general pattern that the essays that tried to very narrowly investigate whether or not some piece of common sense wisdom were supported by evidence were, simultaneously, the best research, in terms of not overreaching, and the worst reading. :-)
The first four articles cover how to read software engineering research. I wish that I had read it in grad school. If you find yourself reading academic papers in computer science, it's worth reading these four articles.
The rest of the articles cover research about different areas of software engineering. If you're like me, your opinion of each article will be partially influenced by its quality and partially influenced by your interest in the topic. That said, there was a general pattern that the essays that tried to very narrowly investigate whether or not some piece of common sense wisdom were supported by evidence were, simultaneously, the best research, in terms of not overreaching, and the worst reading. :-)
xaviershay's review against another edition
4.0
I can't really criticize an academic book for being too academic, but it did go on at times. That's the problem with reading research papers back to back, you end up reading the same threats to validity and research methods over and over again. Still, some good research in here:
- Code review great at catching bugs.
- Coverage not great at predicting bugs, churn and team organization much better.
- Pairing is generally pretty good but not for all tasks.
- Programmers spend *heaps* of time communicating.
- And more, my recall is a bit hosed because I chained all 30-something chapters in the space of two plane trips.
- Code review great at catching bugs.
- Coverage not great at predicting bugs, churn and team organization much better.
- Pairing is generally pretty good but not for all tasks.
- Programmers spend *heaps* of time communicating.
- And more, my recall is a bit hosed because I chained all 30-something chapters in the space of two plane trips.
dav's review
2.0
A collection of essays. I only read a few so far. The one on an academic survey study of Test Driven Development was unable to conclusively show whether TDD was effective or not, but all of the researchers claimed to believe in it anyhow and think the studies surveyed have not been constructed well enough to limn the benefits. Sigh.
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