A review by erikars
Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It by Greg Wilson, Andy Oram
3.0
Like many collections of works, the quality in this volume varied. I only remember one of the articles being particularly bad. A worthwhile number stand out as good.
The first four articles cover how to read software engineering research. I wish that I had read it in grad school. If you find yourself reading academic papers in computer science, it's worth reading these four articles.
The rest of the articles cover research about different areas of software engineering. If you're like me, your opinion of each article will be partially influenced by its quality and partially influenced by your interest in the topic. That said, there was a general pattern that the essays that tried to very narrowly investigate whether or not some piece of common sense wisdom were supported by evidence were, simultaneously, the best research, in terms of not overreaching, and the worst reading. :-)
The first four articles cover how to read software engineering research. I wish that I had read it in grad school. If you find yourself reading academic papers in computer science, it's worth reading these four articles.
The rest of the articles cover research about different areas of software engineering. If you're like me, your opinion of each article will be partially influenced by its quality and partially influenced by your interest in the topic. That said, there was a general pattern that the essays that tried to very narrowly investigate whether or not some piece of common sense wisdom were supported by evidence were, simultaneously, the best research, in terms of not overreaching, and the worst reading. :-)