Triangulation as a basis for knowledge discovery in software engineering

Everyone agrees that reliable empirical “facts” must be derived from a series of investigations. However, the question of what is an appropriate framework for this series is an unresolved issue. Other articles in this issue present replication as the basis for this framework (Shull FJ, Carver JC, Vegas S, Juristo N (2008) The role of replications in Empirical Software Engineering, J Empir Softw Eng (in press)); however, alternatives exist! This brief note argues triangulation should be considered as the basis for this knowledge discovery (from empirical evaluation) strategy.

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