The Human Factor in Software Engineering

In his key note talk at the Karlsruher Entwicklertage yesterday, prof. Michele Lanza talked of IDEs and software visualization. We were travelling through code represented as colourful cities in 3 dimensions (Code city). We learned that "software is beautiful". And that research is not like formula 1: "overpaid drivers running in circles, burning a lot of fuel". Research results like software visualization tools have practical relevance.
However, he was not so fond of empirical research. "Experiment is suicide", it is a waste of time to prove what we knew from the beginning. He said. I am not so happy with this, because having a proof is better than just "knowing". Researchers, too, are humans and can err. And sometimes, empirical research results can be surprising.