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)
Authors have earned$9,909,464writing, 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
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
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
C++ Best Practices
Jason TurnerLevel up your C++, get the tools working for you, eliminate common problems, and move on to more exciting things!
- #2
Continuous Delivery Pipelines
Dave FarleyThis practical handbook provides a step-by-step guide for you to get the best continuous delivery pipeline for your software.
- #3
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.
- #4
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.
The book is almost daily updated. These incremental updates ease my interaction with the proofreaders.
- #5
Atomic Kotlin
Bruce Eckel and Svetlana IsakovaFor both beginning and experienced programmers! From the author of the multi-award-winning Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java together with a member of the Kotlin language team comes a book that breaks the concepts into small, easy-to-digest "atoms," along with exercises supported by hints and solutions directly inside IntelliJ IDEA!
- #6
Introductory Statistics with Randomization and Simulation
Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Christopher Barr, OpenIntro, and David DiezA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science, that introduces inference using randomization and simulation while covering traditional methods.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro, so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using our books in the classroom.
More resources: openintro.org.
- #7
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.
- #8
Java OOP Done Right
Alan MellorObject Oriented Programming is still a great way to create clean, maintainable code. But only if you use it right.
This book gives you 25 years of OO best practice, ready to use.
You'll learn to design objects behaviour-first, use TDD to help, then confidently apply Design Patterns, SOLID principles and Refactoring to make clean, crafted code.
- #9
Introducing EventStorming
Alberto BrandoliniThe deepest tutorial and explanation about EventStorming, straight from the inventor.
- #10
Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Alexander Shen, Alexander S. Kulikov, Vladimir Podolskii, and Aleksandr GolovnevThis book supplements the DM for CS Specialization at Coursera and contains many interactive puzzles, autograded quizzes, and code snippets. They are intended to help you to discover important ideas in discrete mathematics on your own. By purchasing the book, you will get all updates of the book free of charge when they are released.
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
Cisco CCNA 200-301 Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du guide préparation à l'examen de certification Cisco CCNA 200-301. - #4
Modern C++ by Nicolai Josuttis
2 Books
- #5
CCDE Practical Studies (All labs)
3 Books
CCDE lab - #6
"The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++"
2 Books
Get my books "The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++" in a bundle. The first book gives you the details you should know about the C++ standard library; the second one dives deeper into concurrency with modern C++. In sum, you get more than 600 pages full of modern C++ and about 250 source files presenting the standard library... - #7
Mastering Containers
2 Books
Docker and Kubernetes are taking the world by storm! These books will get you up-to-speed fast! Docker Deep Dive is over 400 pages long, and covers all objectives on the Docker Certified Associate exam.The Kubernetes Book includes everything you need to get up and running with Kubernetes! - #8
Modern Management Made Easy
3 Books
Read all three Modern Management Made Easy books. Learn to manage yourself, lead and serve others, and lead the organization. - #9
The Future of Digital Health
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy and how technology giants such as Amazon or Google want to conquer... - #10
Django for Beginners/APIs/Professionals
3 Books
