Empirical studies of software engineering

Abstract

Empirical study play a fundamental role in modern science, helping us understand how and why things work, and allowing us to use this understanding to materially alter our world. Defining and executing studies that change how software development is done is the greatest challenge facing empirical researchers. The key to meeting this challenge lies in understanding what empirical studies really are and how they can be most effectively used -not in new techniques or more intricate statistics. If we want empirical studies to improve software engineering research and practice, then we need to create better studies and we need to draw more credible conclusions from them. Concrete steps we can take today include: designing better studies, collecting data more effectively, and involving others in our empirical enterprises. The AuthorsProfessor Dewayne E. Perry is currently the Motorola Regents Chair of Software Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. The first half of his computing career was spent as a professional programmer, with the latter part combining both research (as a visiting faculty member in Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University) and consulting in software architecture and design. The last 16 years were spent doing software engineering research at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill NJ. His appointment at UT Austin began January 2000. His research interests (in the context software system evolution) empirical studies, formal models of the software processes, process and product support environments, software architecture, and the practical use of formal specifications and techniques. He is particularly interested in the role architecture plays in the coordination of multi-site software development as well as its role in capitalizing on company software assets in the context of product lines. His educational interests at UT include building a great software engineering program both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, creating a software engineering research center, and focusing on the empirical aspects of software engineering to create a mature and rigorous empirical software engineering discipline. He is a Co-Editor in Chief of Wiley's Software Process: Improvement & Practice; an former associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering; a member of ACM SIGSOFT and IEEE Computer Society; and has served as organizing chair, program chair and program committee member on various software engineering conferences. From 1979 through 1998, he was both a member of technical staff and a manager at Bell Labs, Lucent Technology Inc., working and managing development groups in switching and computer products. He was a founding member of the Software Production Research Department at Naperville, Illinois where he pursued research interest ~to understand how to measure, model, and do credible empirical studies with large and complex software developments. In 1999, he retired from Bell Labs, started his own consulting company (Brincos, Inc.), and joined Motorola, Inc. to build high availa...

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