Re: Win2000 has 63,000 'defects'

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <88ma3c$p6a$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Joe Wisniewski <wisniew@acm.org> writes:

> Also consider ..."
>    Categorization of the "defects". If the 63K defects are
>    accurate and account for EVERY possible "fix" that may or may
>    not be a "defect" or even necessary such as a separate defect for
>    every typo in the help file, ..., 63K may not be that big a deal,
>    especially if that number includes enhancements, which are often
>    included in normal defect tracking, just categorized differently.
> 
>    In fact one _could_ make the argument that this is a real step up
>    wrt turning Windows releases into a real software engineering
>    effort. That is, identify every possible thing wrong that has
>    shown up in beta, not matter how trivial it may seem right now.

Ignoring the previous discussion in this topic of how the 63,000 came
about, I doubt the ability of anyone to totally enumerate the defects
in a body of code this large.  This cannot be a total exact count.

If one considers the possibility it is an _estimate_, based on typical
industry figures, the very thought of only 1.5 defects per KLOC is out
of the question.  Some people I know use 5 defects per KLOC for code
that has been revised and 10 defects per KLOC for "new" code.  Reports
indicate that Windows 2000 has a lot of new code.

Thus, based only on the defect count and the 40 million LOC count,
this can only be a partial number, which gives credibility to the
press report that the 63,000 count was the result of one particular
source scanner which may very well have included a goodly number of
false positives. But certainly such a tool is incapable of "finding
all defects".

If Microsoft had a scanner that was able to "find all defects", they
could drop the Windows and Office products (or let the court give it
away) and make more money by renting out their defect scanner.  Of
course before signing up to rent the scanner, some potential customers
might want to see proof in terms of one program that had been scanned
and revised repeatedly until no defects remained.  To date Microsoft
has not offered such a program for sale, so they presumably are taking
the same approach as those who hide their use of Ada as a "strategic
advantage" :-)