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?
The Toilet Paper
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.
Empirical study on the relationship between developer’s working habits and efficiency
Bottom line: don’t overdo it.
Do programmers work at night or during the weekend?
It’s time to bust some myths about programmers’ working hours.
JIT feedback – what experienced developers like about static analysis
Dos and don’ts for people who implement static analysis tools for developers.
Micro-clones in evolving software
Duplicate code. Duplicate code everywhere.
Deep code comment generation
Why write comments in your code when you can also generate them?
Deep code search
Machine learning can be used to create better search engines for code.
Loud and interactive paper prototyping in requirements elicitation: What is it good for?
Paper prototyping is an effective way to get early feedback on your designs.
Learning from mistakes: An empirical study of elicitation interviews performed by novices
Some useful tips and tricks for your next interview.