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> Regarding DeMarco and Lister... After the words you quote, McConnell goes on to say -- "Having said that, their study supports the 10x claim in spades and is

by igouy 14y ago

> Regarding DeMarco and Lister... After the words you quote, McConnell goes on to say -- "Having said that, their study supports the 10x claim in spades and is not subject to many of the more common methodological weaknesses present in other software engineering studies." After the words you quote, McConnell goes on to say -- "Bossavit should have looked at the paper I cited, not the book. The paper shows a 5.6x difference between the best and worst programmers—among the programmers who finished the assignment. About 10% of the programmers weren’t able to complete the assignment at all." I don't see how that can be described as McConnell mostly agrees?

jqjester 14y ago
I was originally responding to the challenge "aren't you taking Bossavit's claims on trust?" I'm differentiating between Bossavit's claims about the citations from Bossavit's analysis and arguments. I have to take his claims about the articles and books on trust, because I haven't read them. On the other hand, I don't have to trust his analysis and arguments - I can evaluate those on my own. In the case of DeMarco and Lister, for example, Bossavit writes "the only 'studies' reported on therein are the programming contests organized by the authors, which took place under loosely controlled conditions (participants were to tackle the exercises at their workplace and concurrently with their work as professional programmers)" That's the only claim that I have to trust here. Everything else is analysis. McConnell agrees with that description of the citation, but disagrees that it invalidates DeMarco and Lister's research. He thinks that a programming contest that took place under loosely controlled conditions is a legitimate research study.
- igouy 14y ago
  To check my understanding of your response, let me reduce it to caricature: B claims the article is not printed on blue paper, and we have to take that claim on trust because we haven't seen it. M agrees with that description of the article, but disagrees that not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence. We can decide for ourselves whether we think not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence.
  - jqjester 14y ago
    That sounds fair.
    - igouy 14y ago
      So presumably you'd characterise -- "I am claiming that for whatever reasons he is here dressing up, in the trappings of scientific discourse, what is in fact an unsupported assertion meshing well with his favored opinion. McConnell is abusing the mechanism of scientific citation to lend authority to a claim which derives it only from a couple studies which can be at best described as “exploratory” (and at worst, maybe, as “discredited”)." -- as Bossavit's "analysis and arguments" which you can evaluate for yourself.

by igouy 14y ago

jqjester 14y ago

I was originally responding to the challenge "aren't you taking Bossavit's claims on trust?" I'm differentiating between Bossavit's claims about the citations from Bossavit's analysis and arguments. I have to take his claims about the articles and books on trust, because I haven't read them. On the other hand, I don't have to trust his analysis and arguments - I can evaluate those on my own. In the case of DeMarco and Lister, for example, Bossavit writes "the only 'studies' reported on therein are the programming contests organized by the authors, which took place under loosely controlled conditions (participants were to tackle the exercises at their workplace and concurrently with their work as professional programmers)" That's the only claim that I have to trust here. Everything else is analysis. McConnell agrees with that description of the citation, but disagrees that it invalidates DeMarco and Lister's research. He thinks that a programming contest that took place under loosely controlled conditions is a legitimate research study.

igouy 14y ago
To check my understanding of your response, let me reduce it to caricature: B claims the article is not printed on blue paper, and we have to take that claim on trust because we haven't seen it. M agrees with that description of the article, but disagrees that not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence. We can decide for ourselves whether we think not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence.
- jqjester 14y ago
  That sounds fair.
  - igouy 14y ago
    So presumably you'd characterise -- "I am claiming that for whatever reasons he is here dressing up, in the trappings of scientific discourse, what is in fact an unsupported assertion meshing well with his favored opinion. McConnell is abusing the mechanism of scientific citation to lend authority to a claim which derives it only from a couple studies which can be at best described as “exploratory” (and at worst, maybe, as “discredited”)." -- as Bossavit's "analysis and arguments" which you can evaluate for yourself.