Folklore in Software Engineering: A Definition and Conceptual Foundations

We explore the concept of folklore within software engineering, drawing from traditional folklore theory to define and characterize cultural narratives, myths, rituals, humor, and informal knowledge that circulate within software development communities. Using a literature review and thematic analysis, we curated exemplar folklore items (e.g., beliefs about where defects occur, the 10x developer legend, and technical debt). We analyzed their narrative form, symbolic meaning, occupational relevance, and links to knowledge areas in software engineering. To ground these concepts in practice, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 industrial practitioners that explored how such narratives are recognized or transmitted in, as well as how they affect, their daily work. Synthesizing these results, we propose a working definition of software engineering folklore as informally transmitted, traditional, and emergent narratives and heuristics enacted within occupational folk groups (e.g., developers, testers, managers) that shape identity, values, and collective knowledge across the socio-technical ecosystem. We argue that making the concept of software engineering folklore explicit provides a foundation for subsequent empirical studies (e.g., ethnography and folklore studies) and for reflective practice that can preserve context-effective heuristics while challenging unhelpful folklore.