A personal perspective on the evolution of empirical software engineering

This paper offers a four-decade overview of the evolution of empirical software engineering from a personal perspective. It represents what I saw as major milestones in terms of the kind of thinking that affected the nature of the work. I use examples from my own work as I feel that work followed the evolution of the field and is representative of the thinking at various points in time. I try to say where we fell short and where we need to go, in the end discussing the barriers we still need to address