Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!tektronix!reed!psu-cs!warren
From: warren@psu-cs.UUCP (Warren Harrison)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: who is doing research on software engineering?
Message-ID: <579@psu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 31 Mar 88 03:29:23 GMT
References: <2610@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR
Lines: 31

> I am curious, just who is really doing software engineering research these
> days, either in academia or in industrial research labs?   Like using Unix, Ada,
> color workstations, color graphical tools, formal languages, reuse libraries.
> Where is the vision?  Where are the future advances coming from?  Who is
> searching for the Silver Bullet?
> Certainly in some 'famous' computer science departments, software engineering
> is not an 'acceptable' field of research. 
> So what is the future and where is it coming from?   Am I going to have to 
> spend the rest of my programming life in the current morass?
> 
> Any leads greatly appreciated.
> Randall Neff       neff@sierra.stanford.edu

Actually, I think a large number of places are doing SE research.  Univ of
Maryland is the first one that springs to mind.  Vic Basili's lab is world
famous, and have come up with some really impressive stuff.  Also, there is
a lot going on in industry, but you'll never hear about it until the products
are released (keep in mind the phrase "competitive advantage").  Naturally,
it all depends on what you consider software engineering, 
but I would guess at least one SE researcher can be found at any school which
has not overspecialized itself (best place to look are the public schools).
In terms of industrial SE research, there are many such efforts
the ones that are best known would be MCC (under Bill Curtis), the
SEI (at CMU) and the Software Productivity Consortium.  Most of the work going
on elsewhere tends to be pretty product oriented.

It would be easier to nail down if your were to tell me what you consider
"software engineering" research to be.

Warren Harrison
The University of Portland