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From: cml@cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re:  use of metrics
Message-ID: <35391@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 91 00:11:53 GMT
References: <801@tivoli.UUCP> <35353@mimsy.umd.edu> <1991Jun7.173800.23746@auto-trol.com>
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In article <1991Jun7.173800.23746@auto-trol.com> alesha@auto-trol.com (Alec Sharp) writes:
>Developed by Victor Basili it says: Set your goals.  To know if you
>are meeting those goals, you have to ask certain questions.  To answer
>those questions you need information, some of which can only come from
>measurements.
>
>Preserve your sanity - don't institute metrics for their own sake.
>Set well defined, well understood, well accepted goals, and measure
>only those things that answer the questions that must be answered.

well summarized!  Better than I could have done on short notice.
Here's the ref:

Basili, Victor R., and H. Dieter Rombach,
"The Tame Project:  Towards Improvement-Oriented Software Environments,"
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering,
Vol. 14, No. 6, June 1988, pp. 758-773.


chris...
-- 
Christopher Lott \/ Dept of Comp Sci, Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
  cml@cs.umd.edu /\ 4122 AV Williams Bldg  301 405-2721 <standard disclaimers>