I don't see in what sense his "facts" are factual.
There are no references. They look more like random opinions - some interesting, but with a fair sprinkling of platitudes - supported by some equally random numbers, of the "Did you know fifty percent of statistics are made up?" kind.
I think it's interesting how dated the piece looks. Equivalent writing today on Quora, Medium, or HN - never mind an IEEE journal - would be more likely to discuss real research.
It might not be certain to have facts, but I think standards of argument have improved significantly - possibly because it's so much easier to find and reference studies than it was when a lot of debate happened very slowly in print.
I think he puts the "Facts" out there with a grain of salt - and admits it in the preamble. They're very much a source of discussion rather than hard and true facts. (Software engineering is a social science where experiments are virtually impossible to replicate. As such, it's only slightly more rigorous than "Facts" in History or Political Science classes.)
There are no references. They look more like random opinions - some interesting, but with a fair sprinkling of platitudes - supported by some equally random numbers, of the "Did you know fifty percent of statistics are made up?" kind.
I think it's interesting how dated the piece looks. Equivalent writing today on Quora, Medium, or HN - never mind an IEEE journal - would be more likely to discuss real research.
It might not be certain to have facts, but I think standards of argument have improved significantly - possibly because it's so much easier to find and reference studies than it was when a lot of debate happened very slowly in print.