How to Develop a General Theory of Software Engineering: Report on the GTSE 2014 Workshop

Abstract

Many academic disciplines have general theories, which apply across the discipline and explain diverse phenomena. General theories facilitate developing a cumulative body of knowledge, increase a field’s resistance to fads and pseudoscience, and help us respond to novel situations where old heuristics break down. The goal of the SEMAT General Theory of Software Engineering (GTSE) workshop is therefore to promote developing and testing general theories for software engineering. The Third GTSE workshop was co-located with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in 2014. Participants explored different types of theories and how to assemble them into a framework. Participants debated how to make theories practical to practitioners and agreed that different types of practitioners (e.g. developers) have different needs for theories.