Tag Archives: quality

When is It Good Enough?

Anecdotes are dangerous. Scott Koon has one about fixing a doorknob, linking it to the now-infamous Spolksy duct-tape programmer post and writes: Think about that the next time you reject a new programming tool because you think it might take … Continue reading

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Wrong Use of Testing Metrics

Brilliant post on testing by Michael Bolton (emphasis mine): Bug Investigation and Reporting (time spent on tests that find bugs)Test Design and Execution (time spent on tests that don’t find bugs) Module Time spent on tests that find bugs Time … Continue reading

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All About the Duct-Tape Programmer

The programming blogosphere exploded to Joel Spolsky’s controversial article “The Duct Tape Programmer” which, as Joel said on Twitter, was meant to provoke people: Of course, nobody would read that or link to it. So I have to embellish. “Duct … Continue reading

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Avoiding Software Car Wrecks

I.M. Wright’s post on risk management is worth reading: Software engineers do this all the time. They come up with a development schedule, unexpected issues come up, and they end up being late. Instead of informing their managers of the … Continue reading

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Time, Budget, Scope

I understand what Glen Alleman is trying to do here when he insists that you can pick all three of time, budget and scope, but he totally misses the point: Put these estimates into a schedule, sequence the work. See … Continue reading

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Serialize Your Projects

Stephan Schmidt explains how doing several projects in parallel is counter-productive because of the high overhead costs involved. Projects must be tracked much longer, more documents are produced and must be tracked. All those status messages aggregate, flow upwards toward … Continue reading

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Guy Kawasaki’s Engineer Lies

Guy Kawasaki had a series of posts where he called out various types of people (venture capitalists, engineers, marketers, etc.) on untrue things that they are used to saying. There are situations when using a tough word is appropriate, but … Continue reading

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Quality and Deadlines

In my previous post on software quality, I said that it was wrong to argue that quality lowers cost without talking about transition costs. There is also another dimension that we must consider, which is the calendar time taken for … Continue reading

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The Dangerous Software Quality-Cost Argument

There is an argument, which I am very sympathetic to, that quality lowers cost and increases the speed of software development. Unfortunately, quite often, the proponents of this argument miss out a phrase, “in the long run“. And because they … Continue reading

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