Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox
From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Code inspections
Message-ID: <6109@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 91 22:06:33 GMT
References: <14964@megatest.UUCP>
Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Organization: Stepstone
Lines: 35

In article <14964@megatest.UUCP> pat@megatest.UUCP (Patrick Powers) writes:
>It seems that the problem with code inspections is largely emotional.

While not in any way arguing against your point, or about the utility of
code inspections in general, isn't it about time that we started breaking
our enfatuation with the *process* of building software (source code,
style rules, programming language, lifecycle, methodology, software development
process, CASE, etc, etc) and started concentrating on the *product*
itself.

To me, the paradigm shift that we're facing is figuring out how to comprehend
software products, which unlike manufactured things like firearm parts, 
are intangible...undetectable by the natural senses.

I envision tools to assist in understanding the static and dynamic properties
of a piece of code the way physicists study the universe, not by asking 
how it was built (a process question), but by putting it under test to 
determine what it does.

Consider two views of a stack class. The conventional view leads us to
ask what language it was written in, and perhaps read the source to see
what it does.

I'm proposing another view from the *outside*. This view ignores the process
whereby it was constructed. This involves specifying its static (does it
provide methods named push and pop?) and dynamic properties (does pushing 
1,2,3 cause pop to return 3,2,1?)

Again, I'm not arguing against the need for a white-box view; only in
favor of a belts and suspenders approach in which we also beef up our
tools for capturing and reasoning about black-box information.
-- 

Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875
The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482