A Focus on the Human Side of Software Engineering

摘要

The Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE) and Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG) are both "grass roots" communities, one motivated by software engineers, the other by cognitive psychologists. Both examine theoretical and methodological issues in software development—but from different perspectives and traditions. Questions about software development, ranging from fundamental issues of problem solving and representation, to highly applied issues of development processes and software maintenance, are complex and inherently interdisciplinary, making it essential that they be addressed from a variety of scientific perspectives. The EASE and PPIG constituencies have long sought ways to interact in order to broaden the discourse and embrace multiple perspectives. EASE and PPIG co-located their annual conferences in April 2003 at Keele University, supported by a grant from the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The aim was to take advantage of the co-location to promote joint activities targeted at improving cross-fertilization of ideas between the two groups, and through them between software engineering and psychology of programming more generally. Cross-fertilization provides leverage to bring industrial relevance to psychology of programming pursuits, and to bring psychology of programming insights into empirical software engineering, thus contributing both to well-grounded theory about software engineering processes and to well-informed software development practice.