Software Engineering Research Questions · It Will Never Work in Theory

This collection of research questions explores diverse aspects of software development, education, diversity in tech, and tool usage patterns. Key themes include developer practices, such as debugging time distribution, code writing vs. tutorial explanation differences, SQL execution order challenges, and Slack channel growth dynamics. Questions also address educational methods like teaching ethics through scenario-based exercises, tracking students’ adoption of IDE features over their academic journey, and analyzing how novices navigate SQL after tidyverse pipelines.

The role of diversity and inclusion is examined via studies on funding disparities among startup founders by race, gender dynamics in youth coding clubs, and the evolution of underrepresented groups’ “whisper networks” during the pandemic. Another focus area is programming languages and code analysis, including feature usage distribution across languages, extracting entity-relationship diagrams from Pandas/tidyverse workflows, and measuring computing proficiency gaps via a Gini-like metric.

Collaboration tools and communication are scrutinized through abstract summarization accuracy in research papers, second-line support’s approach to detail depth, and GitHub label adoption. Ethics education proposes evaluating scenarios where students and professionals compare their decisions against expert judgments. Additionally, the list includes innovative ideas like testing if users can distinguish fake documentation generated by Markov models or designing two-column notebooks for tutorials.

These questions aim to uncover inefficiencies in workflows, biases in tech spaces, skill gaps among scientists, and opportunities to improve tools, education, and inclusivity. By addressing these topics, researchers could enhance developer productivity, equitable practices, and the overall quality of software engineering processes. The work highlights a need to bridge theoretical knowledge with real-world application while fostering more supportive and accessible environments for underrepresented groups in tech. (398 words)