Skip to Content
Making Software
book

Making Software

by Andy Oram, Greg Wilson
October 2010
Beginner to intermediate
624 pages
24h 9m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Making Software

Chapter 3. What We Can Learn from Systematic Reviews

Barbara Kitchenham

As a strong advocate of evidence-based software engineering ([Dybå et al. 2005], [Kitchenham et al. 2004]), I am also a strong advocate of systematic reviews (SRs) ([Kitchenham 2004], [Kitchenham and Charters 2007]). These are sometimes referred to as systematic literature reviews in software engineering to avoid confusions with inspection methods (i.e., methods for reading and reviewing software engineering documents or code). We cannot have evidence-based software engineering without a sound methodology for aggregating evidence from different empirical studies. SRs provide that methodology.

SRs have been in widespread use in other disciplines for decades. Each SR is launched by a researcher to investigate all available evidence that supports or refutes a particular “topic of interest,” which in software engineering typically involves asking about the effect of a method or process. A researcher conducting an SR selects empirical studies that are relevant to the particular research question, assesses the validity of each one, and then determines the trend shown by those studies. Thus, SRs aim to find, assess, and aggregate all relevant evidence about some topic of interest in a fair, repeatable, and auditable manner.

This chapter introduces the value of SRs to readers with a general interest in empirical software engineering. I also aim to help novice researchers (such as PhD students)—who might be looking for ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Righting Software

Righting Software

Juval Lowy
How Software Works

How Software Works

V. Anton Spraul
Design It!

Design It!

Michael Keeling

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596808310Errata Page