Researchers all over the world collectively publish thousands of articles on software development topics every year, hoping to benefit practical software development in the long run. (Of course, some of them only publish to increase their publication count, but hopefully most still aim to advance the field.) But what is really useful for practical software development?

Of all the research articles you have read, what do you consider being the most important one for the software development field?

What is it about that article that makes it stand out as especially important in your view?

Note: I deliberately chose the term "software development", but you can freely interpret it as "programming" or "software engineering", or anything else that fits into the "software development" category.