We Don't Need Another Hero? The Impact of "Heroes" on Software Development

A software project has "Hero Developers" when 80% of contributions are delivered by 20% of the developers. Are such heroes a good idea? Are too many heroes bad for software quality? Is it better to have more/less heroes for different kinds of projects? To answer these questions, we studied 661 open source projects from Public open source software (OSS) Github and 171 projects from an Enterprise Github. We find that hero projects are very common. In fact, as projects grow in size, nearly all project become hero projects. These findings motivated us to look more closely at the effects of heroes on software development. Analysis shows that the frequency to close issues and bugs are not significantly affected by the presence of project type (Public or Enterprise). Similarly, the time needed to resolve an issue/bug/enhancement is not affected by heroes or project type. This is a surprising result since, before looking at the data, we expected that increasing heroes on a project will slow down howfast that project reacts to change. However, we do find a statistically significant association between heroes, project types, and enhancement resolution rates. Heroes do not affect enhancement resolution rates in Public projects. However, in Enterprise projects, the more heroes increase the rate at which project complete enhancements. In summary, our empirical results call for a revision of a long-held truism in software engineering. Software heroes are far more common and valuable than suggested by the literature, particularly for medium to large Enterprise developments. Organizations should reflect on better ways to find and retain more of these heroesComment: 8 pages + 1 references, Accepted to International conference on Software Engineering - Software Engineering in Practice, 201

Ollye B. Conley, The Academy for Science and Foreign Language

The Alabama African American Historic Project has as its objective to research and document the history and culture of Huntsville, Alabama\u27s 19th Century African Americans. This project originated from a question asked by students during a field study to Huntsville\u27s historic Maple Hill Cemetery. While at the cemetery, students located graves of Civil War veterans and former governors of Alabama. Magnificent stories about their lives and outstanding contributions to the city were told. Where were the African Americans? was the question asked. This question evolved into Field Studies, Pictorial and Artifacts Exhibits, and Interdisciplinary Units

All Shall Fade: Homer\u27s Foreshadowing of the End of the Heroic Age in The Iliad

Homer\u27s epic poems are filled with demi-gods and great heroes. However, in The Iliad, Homer undermines the triumph of these heroes by foreshadowing the end of their age and the forthcoming time of mortals. This essay examines how Achilleus\u27 shield, Nestor\u27s longevity, Paris\u27 effeminate nature, and Odysseus\u27 reliance on craftiness rather than physical prowess all indicate the rapid advance of the age of mortal men

The Manager’s Dilemma: Role Conflict in Marketing

Norris Brisco, Melvin Copeland, Henry Erdman, Benjamin Hibbard, George Hotchkiss, Leverett Lyon, Stanley Resor, Clarence Saunders, Harry Tosdal, Roland Vaile: Who are these people? They are great men in the history of marketing, according to Wright and Dinsdale (1974). They are marketing heroes. But riot society’s heroes. Rather than hero, the marketing man is usually a villain in novels; he is the butt of jokes; and respondents to surveys think poorly of him

Search for the hero: an investigation into the sports heroes of British sports fans

This is an initial study into British sports fans’ heroes. A questionnaire was sent to 95 students (average age ¼ 19.75) to identify their sporting hero, the hero’s sport and nationality and the reasons for this choice. Football was the most common source of sports heroes, identified by 49% of participants with a sporting hero. The majority (60%, N ¼ 48) of heroes chosen by participants were British, with David Beckham the most popular choice. Differences were observed between the gender of participants, gender of hero chosen and the reasons for choosing the hero. The most common reason for selecting a hero was a personal trait rather than skill, while in the questionnaire a category of Local Affiliation was added to those suggested by previous work. It was concluded that to become a hero athletes should combine skill with devotion to family, charity work and a place in popular culture

Angela carter’s heroes and villains: a dystopian romance

The present paper modestly attempts to study Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969) as a dystopian romance in apocalyptic mode .It is an attempt to present how Angela Carter critically examines Rousseau’s Utopia of Noble Savage in Heroes and Villains. Carter juxtaposed Rousseau’s concept of ‘Noble Savage’ with the Barbarian Jewel, who does not represent natural ‘goodness of man’ and ‘perfectibility’ which are the merits attributed by Rousseau to his noble savage. Carter debunks the romantic idea of a ‘Noble Savage’ as well as an idyllic picture of the countryside, outside the walls of civilization. Carter scrutinizes Rousseau’s utopian idea of Noble Savage and also shows how the western Enlightenment concept of Binarism to establish identity of the privileged group is misleading as well as responsible for mistrust and harmful conflict between communities. Angela Carter combines dystopia with subversion of the genre of romance in Heroes and Villains. It encodes ‘female values’ of love and relatedness as well as ‘male aggressiveness’ and competition. The paper concludes that Angela Carter examines Rousseau’s utopian notion of Noble Savage as well as his notion of the ideal womanhood in Heroes and Villains. She has created a kind of laboratory world in which there are only three communities, the Professors, the Barbarians and the Savages. It is in this post-apocalyptic futurist world that she examines the utopian ideas of Rousseau. She subverts the romantic notion of love, courtship and manners that categorize popular romances

The Concept of "Self" and the "Other" in Western Movies

Melodrama has been a part of the American life since colonial time. This genre, with its \u27hero-villain\u27 or \u27black and white\u27 development of characters, has formed the idea of the American heroes. In Western films, in which the \u27local\u27 themes of westward movement on the American society are developed, melodrama treats the dichotomy of hero-villain more stereotypically. The heroes depict the concept of the American \u27self\u27 and the villains picture the \u27other.\u27 However, the development of Western film shows that the stereotypical treatment on \u27self\u27 and the \u27other\u27 undergoes some changes