Re: Why and how do organizations select the OO

[vtg@mitre.org (Victor Giddings)]

> In article 1jo805INNfe@emx.cc.utexas.edu, kalakota@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Ravi Ka
lakota) writes:
>
>	Why and how do organizations select the OO approach to Software Eng.
> 
>... There is an amazing lack of objective, evaluative literature 

Before this goes too far ...

No one PROVED that a word processor is "better" than a typewriter (in fact
some studies suggested that they are equally productive and that quality
remained a subjective matter).  That does not, however, give me ammunition
to take away my secretary's word processor (let alone the courage).  And
there is little debate in industry any more.

>on the selection of methodologies
>in software engineering. We seem to be carried away by the bandwagon effect
>and are not spending enough time understanding the pluses and minuses of
>new methodologies, their effectiveness in various types of application
>development areas and their effect on people. I may sound pessimistic but
>it is definitely time that we understood what external factors impact the
>selection of methodologies and what impact does the selection of a methodology
>have on the effectiveness of the development group. While the technical side
>has progressed and is progressing, the management side is limping along with
>lame theorizing which almost always has no practical value.    


Ultimately, we will probably have to depend on the informed opinion of
experienced practicioners.  Real projects have too many variables to serve
as controlled experiments, even if someone were willing to fund parallel
developments.  


> [much deleted]