The Toilet Paper

Summaries of scientific papers without the boring sciencey bits. Ideal for bathroom and other types of breaks.

Some old Dutch banknotes with a ladybug on one of the notes

An industrial evaluation of unit test generation: Finding real faults in a financial application

Why write tests if you can let a computer write them for you?

A researcher who looks at someone who is looking for a job in a cardboard box filled with jobs

Online job search: Study of users’ search behavior using search engine query logs

How people use search engines to find their new job.

A well-equipped Greek hoplite and some not-so-well equipped servants

We don’t need another hero? The impact of “heroes” in software development

Let’s talk about those 10x developers from a project perspective.

A usability study is conducted on a website

Rethinking thinking aloud: A comparison of three think-aloud protocols

There are different ways to do think-aloud. Some are better than others.

A very simple to use interface that is accompanied by a way too elaborate manual, and a complex interface that only comes with an empty sticky note

When not to comment: Questions and tradeoffs with API documentation for C++ projects

You want comments in your code, but probably not too many.

Developers queueing in line to have their code reviewed by an Arstotzka inspector

Characteristics of useful code reviews: An empirical study at Microsoft

Some tips that can help you streamline your code review pipeline.

Turrets being accepted or rejected on an assembly line

The impact of code review coverage and code review participation on software quality

You know about code coverage for tests, but code review coverage is just as important.