What is the Form of Hypotheses in Informatics?
This all sounds fine in theory, but Informatics is not a natural science, in which hypotheses are claims about the nature of the world, supported by experimental evidence. So, do “hypotheses”, as normally understood in natural sciences, have any role to play in Informatics? I strongly believe that hypotheses can and should be formulated about nearly all Informatics research, but you may be more comfortable calling them “claims” rather than “hypotheses”. To understand what shape such claims might take, we need to remind ourselves of the nature of Informatics as the exploration of a space of techniques. A research advance in Informatics might be realised as any of the following: • The invention of a new technique, e.g. a new algorithm, information storage method, computer architecture, software engineering practice, etc. • The better understanding of an existing technique, e.g. its properties or relationships to other techniques. • The extension or improvement of an existing technique, e
