James Kirby
ABSTRACT
"…[S]oftware remains NIT's [Networking and Information Technology] greatest weakness. Although reliable and robust software is central to activities throughout society, much software is brittle, full of bugs and flaws. Software development remains a labor-intensive process in which delays and cost overruns are common, and responding to installed software's errors, anomalies, vulnerabilities, and lack of interoperability is costly to organizations throughout the U.S. economy." "…[T]he science of software development must be a focus of Federal NIT R&D. As software's complexity continues to rise, today's design, development, and management problems will become intractable unless fundamental breakthroughs are made…"[2]
Current understanding of software development---largely based on anecdotes---is inadequate for this "science of software development." Achieving the deeper understanding needed to transform software production requires collecting and using evidence on a large scale. This paper proposes some steps toward that outcome.
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Index Terms
- Evidence-based software production
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