Alan, > The initial results sounded to me as though a barely-relevant > experiment ...
There is a thread of reasoning in the argument. It is just your practiced eye at finding the weak links in arguments that prevented you from seeing it. >This kind of thing is very common out there in the big bad >world. So how is it relevant to PPIG? Are you suggesting we >suffer from: >a) barely-relevant experiments; I'm sure the existing experiments are relevant to learning how novices process/comprehend/analyse very small programs. >b) marginal products; Marginal in the greater scheme of things perhaps. But "As seen on the BBC news" will probably make the owner a fortune. >c) high level of public worry; or It is sadly the case that people pay more attention to the bad news than the good. Telling companies that they will be sued for poor quality/practices or that they will go out of business because their competitors are doing something better than them is more effective than telling them that they should do something because it is good for them. >d) possible superstition? Supersition? I think you mean accepted industry practice ;-) This is what I was thinking about in particular. The amount of supersition about how to write software/manage development projects is enormous. I had an interesting discussion on this topic with Marian Petre at the last PPIG conference. It seems to me that before progress can be made the existing 'theories' need to be disproved. Was it Francis Galton who tested 250 (or some such number) of different ways (that were in general circulation in his day) of magnetising an iron bar. Only one of which worked. What impressed me about aulterra story was how well put together it was. They had produced some impressive (to the untrained) evidence, written by the obligatory PhD, that tapped into a topic of current concern. Some PR person has done an excellent job on selling a story to the BBC; look at how long that news item was. They have priced their product high to start with, get the rich kids first, then they will drop the price in increments to sell into the different layers of society. Not a bit of hand wringing doubt in sight. So much for ppigers to learn from (apart from the dodgy scientific proof). 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 - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
