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From: nancy@ics.uci.edu (Nancy Leveson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Automated Software Testing Tools in Japan
Keywords: software test tools
Message-ID: <26600E66.25414@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 27 May 90 17:29:10 GMT
References: <18172@well.sf.ca.us>
Reply-To: nancy@ics.uci.edu (Nancy Leveson)
Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS
Lines: 21

In article <18172@well.sf.ca.us> jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield) writes:
>
>The Japanese are well-known for the high quality of their products.
>The question that I am directing to developers of software products
>in Japan is the following: What kinds of tools are you using to
>improve the quality of your software products?

You are probably asking the wrong question -- which reflects the bias in the
U.S.  I was at an invited workshop in Japan last year on the subject of
software quality.  What I continually heard was that they felt the U.S.
thought the answer to getting high quality was tools while the Japanese
felt that other factors were more important, e.g., motivation of individuals.
There is a man at the Sloan School at MIT named Cusamano [probably spelled
wrong] that has written a book and articles on the subject -- you should
get hold of them if you are willing to look for a "non-magic" solution
("if I could only get the right tools, my software will be great").

nancy leveson

--
Nancy Leveson