Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ads.com!saturn!jgautier From: jgautier@vangogh.ads.com (Jorge Gautier) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Software Quality Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 91 02:23:57 GMT References: Sender: usenet@ads.com (USENET News) Distribution: comp.software-eng Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, +1 (415) 960-7300 Lines: 53 In-Reply-To: root@afit.af.mil's message of 14 Mar 91 13:05:36 GMT In article root@afit.af.mil writes: > >By the way, don't be swayed by the advocates of "integrated CASE > >tools" and "software metrics"-- these people are not software > >developers. > > 1) This is a pretty sweeping statement. Seems more likely to be opinion > than fact. The original message referred to software quality. I was warning the author that there are many who believe and advocate metrics and tools as the silver bullet for low software quality. I am reaffirming the author's statement that programmer attitude and mentality is the most important and essential aspect of software quality. "A fool with a tool is still a fool." > 2) I guess I am to infer that CASE tools and metrics are not useful. No. I didn't mean to imply that. > At the VERY LEAST, metrics > can provide important data for trend analysis (where is our process going > wrong?). I disagree. At the very least, metrics can provide you with useless numbers. > But I suspect that as we get a better grasp on software metrics, > we will be able to do more and more with them. That sure would be nice. > There are a lot of folks looking into measurement of software -- we've > come a long way from "lines of code." Who's "we"? There's people on this net asking for lines of code tools. > By the way, research in software > metrics can contribute to our understanding of software in general (see > below). Research into software development, perhaps using some kind of metrics, can contribute to our understanding of software in general. > This does not mean that metrics are not useful; only that we still > have plenty of work to do in understanding software, so that we (whoever > we are) can better measure and control (whatever that means). Agreed. -- Jorge A. Gautier| "The enemy is at the gate. And the enemy is the human mind jgautier@ads.com| itself--or lack of it--on this planet." -General Boy DISCLAIMER: All statements in this message are false.