[chas]

If you want an overview of the ideas behind this sort of research and a quick summary of some results, Greg Wilson gave a great talk on it[0].

I haven't read through the site to see what is there, but software engineering methodology and technique research* uses techniques from research of management techniques in business, making it closer to psychology or sociology. For more information, the blog "It Will Never Work in Theory"[1] does a good job of highlighting these sorts of results that are directly useful and has some explanation of the tools they are using to study software engineering practices. The book Making Software[2] goes into much more detail on software engineering research methodologies if you are interested.

*As opposed to CS theory research that could be used in software engineering, which is usually math.

[0] http://vimeo.com/9270320 [1] http://neverworkintheory.org/index.html [2] http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596808303.do

[mathattack]

Thanks! I had Making Software on my bookshelf, and someone "borrowed" it. I'll need to "borrow" it back. :-) The challenge from it's intro was that anyone in the field will overstate the truth in the research. I used to be a business book junkie until I realized what weak foundation most of it was built on. I've gradually come back to the genre but more for context and story than predictive power.

The Halo Effect [0] amped up my skepticism. Of course it was a business book [1] that introduced me to the Halo Effect... :-)

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions/dp/...