> > In the paper that I mentioned in a previous posting, Wieringa claimed
> > that much of the Software Engineering (SE) research does not apply
> > scientific methods. Not only that I agreed with him, but I claimed
> > that the situation is even worth than that; in many of the SE papers
> > the underlying research questions are not scientific. I presented this
> > position in the 2007 European conference on Computing and Philosophy.
>
> I agree with what you say about the problem (I would throw
> out a large chunk of the mathematical approach to the
> solution proposed in your paper).
I will apologise for not having read the paper. I am currently away from my
home university and will be travelling for a while. However, I agree that
many of the "research questions are not scientific". There was a remark in a
previous email (I don't recall who from) that suggested I might be
misapplying Kuhn's idea of paradigms? I will accept that this might be the
case as I tend to synthesize ideas to look for commonalities but I would
also contend that we need to ask questions about
1) why supporters of particular approaches to software development are
talking past each other and not necessarily hearing what each other are
saying?
2) are the concepts of paradigm change exposed by Kuhn only applicable to
scientific changes or is there a more generic truth here related to changes
in the underlying assumptions and approaches to a subject or a practice?
3) when we represent a problem with a competing approach whether we present
that problem from a core set of concepts that are applicable to all software
development approaches?
I am not using the term software engineering because I find that this phrase
carries with it assumptions about an appropriate way to develop software.
Ok, I can see that statement can also be challenged as simplistic, etc. but
I see this as one of the problems within this context that so many terms
carry assumptions for one group or other and often those groups use those
terms in incompatible ways.
My current research is exploring the way that practitioners are aware of
object-oriented software development. My method isn't scientific but comes
originally from an educational context. My results so far from the analysis
of 31 interviews show that there is a diversity of understanding. It also
shows some interesting issues around some key concepts. It is easy to say
that some of these variations are errors in understanding but are they? I am
not saying that what I am uncovering are different paradigms. They aren't
but it dies show that there is less consistency than we might expect within
this particular programming paradigm.
----------------------------
Errol Thompson
Massey University
Wellington 6140.
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.teach.thompsonz.net
----------------------------
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