The Leprechauns of Software Engineering
The Leprechauns of Software Engineering
How folklore turns into fact and what to do about it
About the Book
The software profession has a problem, widely recognized but which nobody seems willing to do anything about. You can think of this problem as a variant of the well known "telephone game", where some trivial rumor is repeated from one person to the next until it has become distorted beyond recognition and blown up out of all proportion.
Unfortunately, the objects of this telephone game are generally considered cornerstone truths of the discipline, to the point that their acceptance now seems to hinder further progress.
In this short ebook, we will take a look at some of those "ground truths": the claimed 10x variation in productivity between developers; the "software crisis"; the cost-of-change curve; the "cone of uncertainty"; and more. We'll hone our scholarship skills by looking up the original source for these ideas and taking a deep dive in the history of their development. We'll assess the real weight of the evidence behind these ideas.
And we'll confront the scary prospect of moving the state of the art forward in a discipline that has had the ground kicked from under it.
This book is a work in progress. Visit the blog. Download the sample. Read the Preface - know just what you're getting.
About the Author
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
- Preface
-
Chapter 1: Software Engineering’s telephone game
- How we got there
- Surface plausibility
- Leprechaun spotting
- What you can do
-
Chapter 2: The Cone of Uncertainty
- How to feel foolish in front of a class
- Making sense of the picture
- Getting to the facts
- The telephone game in action
- Controversy
- What to make of all this?
-
Chapter 3: Why you should care about empirical results
- The perils of empirical research
- Discipline envy
- Science and reality
- Where to go from here
-
Chapter 4: The messy workings of scientific discourse
- Modalities
- Citation as modality
- The construction of facts
-
Chapter 5: The hunt for the 10x files
- Why is this important? Isn’t it obvious?
- The impressive list of references
- The original study and the 10x claim
- Harshly criticized
- The 10x files
- Good study, bad study
- The wild goose chase
-
Chapter 6: The variable programmer
- Getting just the results you want
- Within-subject variability
- Rocket science: the NASA data
- Needle in a haystack
- The COCOMO haystacks
- Environmental effects
- Summing up
- Interlude: How To Lie
-
Chapter 7: Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Waterfall?
- The standard story
- Alternate endings
- Just the facts
- No paper is an island
- Late bloomer
- Birth of a myth
- Chapter 8: Software’s perpetual crisis
- Chapter 9: A Leprechaun hunting tutorial
-
Chapter 10: The cost of defects: an illustrated history
- Origins
- First amendments
- Where’s the data?
- Metamorphoses
- Changing the topic altogether
- Reading curves
- Theory-laden diagrams
- Boehm’s assent
-
Chapter 11: Rocket science and Flaubert math
- Flaubert and the math of ROI
- NASA IV&V’s math
- How old is the captain?
- Eighy-three! For some value of eighty-three.
-
Chapter 12: For some value of 56
- Where bugs come from
- Sample size of one
- Poor requirements
- A software triumph
-
Chapter 13: The cost of bad research
- Uncritical thinking
- Extraordinarily suspect claims
- Terms of inquiry
- Research standards
-
Chapter 14: Raising the bar
- Two modest proposals for publications on software development
- Will you take the pledge?
-
Chapter 15: A new model of inquiry
- The Ouroboros effect: circular causation
- From Requirements To Negotiation
- The cliffhanger
-
Appendix A: bibliographical analysis of the 10x files
- Questions of indirection
- Summary results
- The quest for primary sources
- A better list: primary sources with empirical evidence
-
Appendix B: bibliographical analysis for the “defect-cost-increase curve”
- The older references
- The newer references
-
Appendix C - Conceptions and invention of waterfall
- Invention of waterfall
- Conceptions of waterfall (articles between 1970 and 1989)
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$10,799,408writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
Aprendiendo Git
Miguel Angel Durán GarcíaGit no es complicado... ¡Si lo entiendes! 😜
¿Sientes que sabes usarlo porque has memorizado todos los comandos que necesitas? ¡Pero no entiendes qué hace cada cosa y por qué! Así es normal que, cuando exista un problema, te cueste resolverlo.
¡Con este libro vas a entender de una vez por todas todo lo que es Git y cómo sacarle provecho!
- #2
C++20
Rainer GrimmC++20 is the next big C++ standard after C++11. As C++11 did it, C++20 changes the way we program modern C++. This change is, in particular, due to the big four of C++20: ranges, coroutines, concepts, and modules.
- #3
Introducing EventStorming
Alberto BrandoliniThe deepest tutorial and explanation about EventStorming, straight from the inventor.
- #4
Functional Programming Made Easier
Charles ScalfaniA Functional Programming book from beginner to advanced without skipping a single step along the way.
In my 40 years of programming, I've felt that programming books always let me down, especially Functional Programming books. So, I wrote the book I wish I had 5 years ago.
Functional Programming will never be easy, but it can be easier.
- #5
Windows 10 System Programming, Part 2
Pavel Yosifovich - #6
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #7
Jetpack Compose internals
Jorge CastilloJetpack Compose is the future of Android UI. Master how it works internally and become a more efficient developer with it. You'll also find it valuable if you are not an Android dev. This book provides all the details to understand how the Compose compiler & runtime work, and how to create a client library using them.
- #8
Thinking with Types
Sandy MaguireThis book aims to be the comprehensive manual for type-level programming. It's about getting you from here to there---from a competent Haskell programmer to one who convinces the compiler to do their work for them.
- #9
node-opcua by example
Etienne RossignonGet the best out of node-opcua through a set of documented examples by the author himself that will allow you to create stunning OPCUA Servers or Clients.
- #10
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
The Python Craftsman
3 Books
The Python Craftsman series comprises The Python Apprentice, The Python Journeyman, and The Python Master. The first book is primarily suitable for for programmers with some experience of programming in another language. If you don't have any experience with programming this book may be a bit daunting. You'll be learning not just a programming... - #4
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #7
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #9
Development and Deployment of Multiplayer Online Games, Part ARCH. Architecture (Vol. I-III)
3 Books
What's the Big Idea? The idea behind this book is to summarize the body of knowledge that already exists on multiplayer games but is not available in one single place.And quite a fewof the issues discussed within this series (planned as three nine volumes ~300 pages each), while known in the industry, have not been published at all (except for...
