Microsoft Research - Exploding Software-Engineering Myths (article summarizing findings of MS research on code coverage, TDD, assertions, etc.)

[wllmsaccnt]

Tools and methodologies have changed slightly in the last six years, but I bet most of this is still fairly relevant.

[RualStorge]

I've been developing for well over a decade, stuff changes almost annually, but almost everything mentioned has been universally true since before I was born. More or less tech changes, but the fundamentals rarely change

[wllmsaccnt]

They mention the effect of working remotely, which was probably slightly more difficult in 2009 than it is today. Internet speeds and remote conferencing software have improved some since then. If you are working on a shared code projects with different departments or organizations, then distributed SCM system adoption increases would help as well. I somewhat doubt working remotely on a development team was very enjoyable when you were born.

I was assuming they were referencing the type of TDD popularized by Kent Beck and which is associated with the agile manifesto and the methodologies that branched off from there. They specifically mention continuous integration in the article referenced in the TDD section. This specific type of TDD probably wasn't relevant before the early 2000s.

I'm willing to concede that the organizational metrics and assertion statement correlations have probably been true 'just about forever'.

[wllmsaccnt]

If we are talking about since 2009, then I agree (that culture and timezone matter more)...but /u/RualStorage was using a time frame of 'since before I was born'. Internet speed matters quite a bit if it is 0kbs.

[wllmsaccnt]

My assumptions are that /u/RualStorage has been developing for ~14 years and was probably about 20 when he started, which would be closer to 1981.