Experiments in Computing: A Survey

Abstract EN

Experiments play a central role in science.

The role of experimentsin computing is, however, unclear.

Questions about the relevance of experiments in computing attracted little attention until the 1980s.

As thediscipline then saw a push towards experimental computer science, a variety of technically, theoretically, and empirically oriented views on experiments emerged.

As a consequence of those debates, today's computingfields use experiments and experiment terminology in a variety of ways.

This paper analyzes experimentation debates in computing.

It presentsfive ways in which debaters have conceptualized experiments in computing: feasibility experiment, trial experiment, field experiment, comparisonexperiment, and controlled experiment.

This paper has three aims: toclarify experiment terminology in computing; to contribute to disciplinaryself-understanding of computing; and, due to computing’s centrality inother fields, to promote understanding of experiments in modern sciencein general.