General talk about software patterns

["Harrison, Neil B \(Neil\)" <nbharrison AT avaya.com>]

Dear Steve Weir,

Thank you for posting your survey on the web and requesting
volunteers to fill it out.  After you have collected the
results, please throw them away.

Now that I've got your attention... :-)

I'm serious; your results will be invalid, and they should
be thrown away.

Here's the problem:

When you take a survey, you are making assumptions about a
given population based on a sample.  That's what statistics is.
Any statistician will tell you that for a sample to be valid,
it must be a random sample across the population.

A VOLUNTEER SURVEY IS NOT RANDOM.

The survey takers self-select, based on some criteria.
It doesn't matter why they decide to take the survey; no
matter the reason, they are not a random sample.

The reason I'm making a big deal out of this is that I've
seen several such survey requests, usually for a senior
project or master's thesis.  We're getting people writing
up conclusions based on faulty surveying techniques -- the
conclusions could well be wrong.

So, please provide me the name of your advisor, and I will
write him and explain why your master's thesis should be
rejected. :-)

Seriously, you need to withdraw this survey request, and
design your sample to be representative of the population.
You may want to trek over to your local statistics department;
I'm sure they will be happy to help you.

Thanks,

Neil Harrison


> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> patterns-discussion-bounces AT cs.uiuc.edu
> [mailto:patterns-discussion-bounces AT cs.uiuc.edu]On
>  Behalf Of 
> Steve+Weir
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 11:18 PM
> To: 
> patterns-discussion AT cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: [patterns-discussion] Design Patterns Survey, Incentives
> Provided
> 
> 
> Software Practitioner, 
> 
> I am seeking individuals to fill out a survey for an important thesis 
> research project being conducted for Utah State University. 
> 
> You will be able to fill out the survey online by visiting 
> the website at 
> https://otherland.cs.usu.edu/~steveweir/core.php. 
> 
> It concerns the experiences of practitioners in the career 
> field of computer 
> software who use or have considered using design patterns. 
> 
> If you would like to participate in the survey please reply 
> to this email, 
> or you can send an email to 
> patterns AT webpipe.net
>  and include “survey 
> login” in the subject line. A password will be emailed to you 
> to log into 
> the survey. 
> 
> This study is an important part of a research effort to analyze the 
> inhibitors to software practitioners learning and using 
> design patterns. 
> 
> Thank you for your time and consideration. It’s only with the 
> generous 
> help of people like you that this research can be successful. 
> 
> Sincerely,
> Steve B. Weir
> Graduate Student
> Department of Computer Science, Utah State University 
> 
> P.S. Those who have completed the survey by 22 October 2004 
> will be put into 
> a drawing for the following prizes. The three winners will be 
> notified by 
> email.
> Book: “Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture”
>        by Martin Fowler, David Rice, Matthew Foemmel, Edward 
> Hieatt, Robert Mee, 
>        Randy Stafford, ISBN 0321127420. 
> 
> Book: “Refactoring to Patterns”
>        by Joshua Kerievsky, ISBN 0321213351. 
> 
> Book: “Core J2EE Patterns: Best Practices and Design 
> Strategies, Second 
> Edition”
>        by Deepak Alur, Dan Malks, John Crupi, ISBN 0131422464. 
> 
> Notice 1 - uiuc mail list 
> 
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