Most of the articles I’ve come across while browsing through the ACM digital library and IEEE Xplore have been very good, quality-wise. No wonder, since most of the articles listed on these sites have gone through a peer-review process and have appeared either at conferences or in scientific papers worldwide.

That’s not to say that all of them have been good. For example, I’m just glancing through a paper entitled Software Quality and Agile Methods, that - judging by its name - should fit the subject of my thesis quite nicely. The paper was released in the proceedings of the 28th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC’04), but in reality, the paper seems to me as if written by a group of students for their Software Engineering 101 course (no offense to the authors, perhaps this has actually been the case.)

The paper is quite superficial in that it spends the first 3 or 4 pages giving an overview on agile methods in general, and then comparing them with the waterfall model, and not making any great strides at that. The research is more of a rehashing of known facts apart from a few conclusions the authors make. It also makes some seemingly unverified statements, such as the authors’ problem statement:

Can agile methods ensure quality even though they develop software faster [...] ?

While there are certainly results that indicate that agile methods might result in a faster turnaround time for a piece of software, this can’t be generalized just like that. And for me, agile methodologies encompass more important features than finishing the project quickly. For example, producing software that the customer really needs (and not just what she thinks she needs at first.)

The authors continue with

Testing and simulation are dynamic techniques.
Sometimes static techniques are used to support
dynamic techniques and vice versa. The waterfall
model uses both static and dynamic techniques.
However, agile methods mostly use dynamic
techniques.

Profound thoughts

On a more serious note, all I’m saying that it’s worthwhile to really dissect and assess your source material, instead of just taking it as the [your-deity-of-choice]’s honest truth.