Evidence based studies on the topic of best programming practices? [closed]

Question

When seeking advice on good programming practices the typical answers are a variation of agile software development, test driven development or design patterns. However, as far as I know, neither of these are proven using the scientific method (if I'm wrong on this then feel free to correct me).

I wonder, are there any good resources on the topic of evidence-based development practices?

Answer 1

If you are really interested in this then the best source of information would be academic journals or the IEEE as donroby mentions. If you have a degree from a uni and are an Alumni member still then you may be able access the information through the university library (At least that is how it works in Australia. Alumni can get cheap membership to the library at the uni and access to a lot of the resources students use.)

EDIT: Most of the information will not be experimental but studies of projects and surveys. You can't really apply the scientific method in this kind of thing; it's closer to social science than it is the hard sciences like chemistry and physics