Steve McConnell himself doesn't dispute Bossavit's claims about the earlier studies (for the most part), he just disagrees about the significance of those claims. See McConnell's rebuttal in which he acknowledges the methodological weaknesses of the citations: http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_... .

What specifically are you pointing to within that blog post and comment stream? (Let's make sure I look at exactly what you mean me to see.)

Sure - I'm pointing to the section titled "A Deeper Dive into the Research Supporting '10x'".

I'm accepting one of Bossavit's claims on trust: he says that of McConnell's eight citations in support of the 10x claim, only two were original research based on empirical studies under controlled conditions (and of those two one only concerned debugging).

I'm willing to trust that because it looks like McConnell mostly agrees. For example, regarding the 1986 Curtis paper, McConnell writes "Bossavit states that, “the 1986 Curtis article does not report on an empirical study.” I never stated that Curtis 1986 was an 'empirical study.'" Regarding DeMarco and Lister, he says "Editorial insinuations aside, that is a correct description of what DeMarco and Lister reported, both in the paper I cited and in Peopleware. Their 1985 study had some of the methodological limitations Sheil’s discussed in 1981".

They disagree about what counts as evidence supporting the 10x claim, but apart from the Card 1987 citation (about which Bassavit was wrong), McConnell confirms Bossavit's claims about every citation.

> Regarding DeMarco and Lister...

After the words you quote, McConnell goes on to say -- "Having said that, their study supports the 10x claim in spades and is not subject to many of the more common methodological weaknesses present in other software engineering studies."

After the words you quote, McConnell goes on to say -- "Bossavit should have looked at the paper I cited, not the book. The paper shows a 5.6x difference between the best and worst programmers—among the programmers who finished the assignment. About 10% of the programmers weren’t able to complete the assignment at all."

I don't see how that can be described as McConnell mostly agrees?

I was originally responding to the challenge "aren't you taking Bossavit's claims on trust?"

I'm differentiating between Bossavit's claims about the citations from Bossavit's analysis and arguments. I have to take his claims about the articles and books on trust, because I haven't read them. On the other hand, I don't have to trust his analysis and arguments - I can evaluate those on my own.

In the case of DeMarco and Lister, for example, Bossavit writes "the only 'studies' reported on therein are the programming contests organized by the authors, which took place under loosely controlled conditions (participants were to tackle the exercises at their workplace and concurrently with their work as professional programmers)"

That's the only claim that I have to trust here. Everything else is analysis. McConnell agrees with that description of the citation, but disagrees that it invalidates DeMarco and Lister's research. He thinks that a programming contest that took place under loosely controlled conditions is a legitimate research study.

To check my understanding of your response, let me reduce it to caricature:

B claims the article is not printed on blue paper, and we have to take that claim on trust because we haven't seen it.

M agrees with that description of the article, but disagrees that not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence.

We can decide for ourselves whether we think not printed on blue paper invalidates its status as evidence.

That sounds fair.

So presumably you'd characterise --

"I am claiming that for whatever reasons he is here dressing up, in the trappings of scientific discourse, what is in fact an unsupported assertion meshing well with his favored opinion. McConnell is abusing the mechanism of scientific citation to lend authority to a claim which derives it only from a couple studies which can be at best described as “exploratory” (and at worst, maybe, as “discredited”)."

-- as Bossavit's "analysis and arguments" which you can evaluate for yourself.

I've just read through the McConnell post and the comment stream, and your comment that "McConnell confirms Bossavit's claims about every citation" baffles me :-)

"Curtis 1986. ... Bossavit says the paper “offers no support for the ‘10x’ claim.” But the first paragraph in section II.A. of the paper (p. 1093) summarizes 4 studies with the overall gist of the studies being that there are very large differences in productivity among programmers. The specific numbers cited are 28:1 and 23:1 differences."

I don't see how that can be described as McConnell confirming Bossavit's claims?

Again, McConnell isn't disagreeing with Bossavit's claims about the Curtis 1986 citation. He concurs! "I never stated that Curtis 1986 was an 'empirical study.' Curtis 1986 is a broad paper that touches on, among other things, differences in programmer productivity. "

The difference is that McConnell thinks that summarizing four studies "offers support for the 10x claim" and Bossavit does not. That's a matter of analysis & evidentiary standards.