Re: McCabe package for Ada?

[news.crd.ge.com!e7sa!groleau@uunet.uu.net (Wes Groleau X7574)]

In article <1993May24.003302.27291@mole-end.matawan.nj.us> mat@mole-end.matawan
.nj.us writes:
>In article <1993May19.220953.20443@sparky.imd.sterling.com>, dwb@IMD.Sterling.
COM (David Boyd) writes:
>> In article <C7AIDs.K3@crdnns.crd.ge.com>, groleau@e7sa.crd.ge.com (Wes Grole
au
>> X7574) writes:
 
I did not write what follows, in case anyone cares.

>> 	Actually the McCabe folks have come up with some metrics for just
>> that situation.  ...  pathological complexity (pv(G))
>> which measures those truely awfull conditions in code
>> such as branches into loops or decisions.  You know the stuff you shoot
>> people for or would only expect from a 10 year olds first program.

This is NOT the situation I was talking about.  I was talking about code
that "fools" a control analyzer into giving it a low complexity rating.  
Instead of having ridiculously complex decisions and convoluted nesting, it
has "simple" one or two level control structures.  Unfortunately, it's not any
easier to understand, because it's sixteen pages long and the coding thought
process goes like this:
LOOP
  "Hmm, I'm gonna need to make a decision based on these two fields sometime
       further down the file, so I'll check the condition now and throw the
       answer into this boolean (or enumerated, or integer) variable."
  "OK, now I need to loop the number of times I saved in...which scratch
       variable did I put that in?"
  "And inside this loop I need to create and save another control value
       for the decision in the exception handler..."
  "Now I need a case statement on the variable I assigned by calling that
       subprogram back there ...
  [ more of the same ]
  exit LOOP and hope it works when I can no longer figure out where I am...
END LOOP

If I had a nickel for the number of times somebody said "I don't know why
I did that.  Must be needed somewhere else." ...

Wes