Using planning poker for combining expert estimates in software projects
You probably already know or even use planning poker. This paper tells you how well it works.
The Toilet Paper
Negative results for software effort estimation
The reports of COCOMO’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Scalable transfer patterns
Path finding algorithms for public transport take a little bit more work to get right than those for private transport.
Gender diversity and women in software teams
Tech is largely dominated by men and that’s not good for anyone.
Understanding large-scale software – A hierarchical view
Program comprehension often focusses on the understanding of code, but in practice that often won’t be enough.
Practitioners’ views on good software testing practices
A look at some best practices for software testing.
Beyond the code itself: How programmers really look at pull requests
An eye tracker shows what developers look at when they see a pull request.
Migrating to GraphQL: A practical assessment
Facebook’s GraphQL looks very promising, but is it ready for primetime?
The use of UML in software maintenance and its perceived benefits and hurdles
UML documentation makes maintenance easier, but ironically can also be hard to maintain. What practices should you follow or avoid?
Is beautiful really usable?
This week’s lesson: don’t believe everything you read (or at least try to look for multiple credible sources).
What is beautiful is usable
If you have a neckbeard colleague who thinks websites and apps should have ugly spartan user interfaces, show them this paper.
Uncovering architectural design decisions
Poorly documented code can tell you what it does, but not what why. Issue trackers can help you rediscover that “why”.
Studying the impact of adopting continuous integration on the delivery time of pull requests
Continuous integration should make everything faster, but it can actually slow things down too.
Exploring ScrumBut – An empirical study of Scrum anti-patterns
Of course you use Scrum – everyone does! But…
Cross-cultural web usability model
Make sure your website doesn’t look or behave like a lost tourist.
Teamwork quality and project success in software development: A survey of agile development teams
Answers to all the questions you never had about teams.
How do design decisions affect the distribution of software metrics?
The authors of this week’s paper built a tool that can infer the design role of classes and let it analyse some Java projects.
Do software engineers use autocompletion features differently than other developers?
If you suspect that Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again, you’re probably right.
Does it really matter to test-first or to test-last?
Debunking some myths about the effectiveness of test-driven development.
I’m leaving you, Travis: A continuous integration breakup story
What makes people abandon their continuous integration service?
Intrusion of software robots into journalism
Robots might take over jobs in journalism. What else is new(s)?
Measuring perceived usability: The CSUQ, SUS, and UMUX
It’s a battle of standardised usability questionnaires.
The pricey bill of technical debt: When and by whom will it be paid?
Everyone keeps talking about how technical debt is bad, but how bad is it really?
On the usage of Pythonic idioms
Ways to ensure that all code is equal and no code is more equal than others.