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This is what I'm referring to: > A lot will be from before 2000, before we had things like "Agile" and "unit tests" and "widespread version control", so you ca
by SloopJon 5y ago
This is what I'm referring to:
> A lot will be from before 2000, before we had things like "Agile" and "unit tests" and "widespread version control", so you can't extrapolate any of their conclusions to what we're doing. As a rule of thumb I try to keep to papers after 2010.
While I admit that even in the late 90s, it seemed strange to me to see citations from the 70s or 80s about projects from the 60s (like, say, OS/360), I'm not convinced that so much has changed in the last ten to twenty years as to render all previous research irrelevant.
- duped 5y agoIf anything it raises a much better question that a survey of past research might help answer, is there a difference in productivity over the last 20 years since Agile/source control/unit testing became popularized?
- hwayne 5y agoYeah I'll admit it was an off-the-cuff quip that really isn't all that accurate. I don't put as much time into editing the newsletter as I do into my proper essays, so stuff that I'd normally polish out gets through. I do prefer to keep to papers after 2000 in general, less because of dramatic quality differences and more because it leaves fewer ways for people to dismiss stuff without looking at it.
- tene 5y agoIt's also bizarre to see claims that unit tests are so new. I can't say I really know about other communities, but Perl at least was doing a lot of unit testing using the Test Anything Protocol (TAP) back in 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Anything_Protocol#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Anything_Protocol#History