Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!eos!aio!gwharvey From: gwharvey@lescsse.uucp (Greg Harvey) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Software Quality Message-ID: Date: 18 Mar 91 04:42:46 GMT References: <1991Mar15.095125.44@skyler.mavd.honeywell.com> Sender: news@aio.jsc.nasa.gov (USENET News System) Distribution: comp.software-eng Organization: Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Lines: 58 In <1991Mar15.095125.44@skyler.mavd.honeywell.com> djbailey@skyler.mavd.honeywell.com writes: >> [...] "We can't apply metrics that we don't understand." [stuff deleted] >Now, back to the quote. The problem is that we attach too much >significance to metrics without understanding them. If you want to >investigate software development scientifically, you have to measure >something. You also have to evaluate your measurement techniques. >Developing good measurement techniques is extremely important. >You can't develop a science without measurements. We have a quote that may apply to "meaurement without understanding"--"Fundamentally, they don't know what they're doing." This phrase is used generically toward those (who shall rename mainless) around us who prefer the golden goose approach to life...i.e. if we just had a golden goose (or silver bullet, or the pot at the end of the rainbow) life would be wonderful. Believing that life will be wonderful does not replace sane attempts to make it so. The attempts to make life wonderful must be accompanied by realistic attempts to understand just how much more wonderful life has become. Software quality metrics are not academic exercises! Quality is measurable. Good quality is quantifiable. [We] Measure what is important. These statements form the rhetorical foundation for a much needed "quality revolution." Software QA is just one area where these belief statements can be applied effectively. Zero defects is a difficult concept to grasp because we humans lack perfection and even have difficulty visualizing perfection. Zero defects is an accountability method where we introspectively examine defects in order to determine how each occurred. If done honestly and carefully, the person comes to the realization that faulty results follow faulty methods. An honest person realizes, at the exact same instant, that faulty methods are not character flaws, but instead are opportunities for improvement! Simple accountability, which most people avoid (myself included!), helps us do our best in every life situation. Admittedly, being responsible or accountable for our actions can make life uncomfortable. Software QA strives to recreate the desire for "directed perfection" in the software creator. It creates this desire by measuring the effectiveness, as best it is able, of the creators and discussing the results with them. Its focus should be enhancing the creative powers of the individual through incremental improvement of method. We will never accomplish what we can't at least imagine! (--I don't know who to attribute this to, but it isn't original with me!) On the other hand... Now, class, let's review what happens when U.S. software has 35 defects per 100 lines of code and software has 0.1 defects per 100 lines of code. Can innovation make up for lost competitiveness due to poor quality? I don't know, let's ask the Detroit automakers for a historical perspective? -- If you get the impression I'm not qualified to speak for my company, it's because I ain't, I can't, I don't, I won't, and I don'wanna. Greg Harvey Internet: lobster!lescsse!gwharvey@menudo.uh.edu Lockheed, Houston Texas UUCP: lobster!lescsse!gwharvey