From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,899fc98b2883af4a X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-15 11:26:20 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn14feed!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc04.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Shayne Wissler Subject: Re: Quality systems (Was: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,comp.software-eng References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090612.261d5a5c@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305091549.48b9c5d9@posting.google.com> <7507f79d.0305121629.5b8b7369@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305130543.60381450@posting.google.com> <254c16a.0305140549.3a87281b@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305141747.5680c577@posting.google.com> <3EC3D737.6020509@attbi.com> User-Agent: KNode/0.7.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.254.147.76 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc04 1053023179 12.254.147.76 (Thu, 15 May 2003 18:26:19 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 18:26:19 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 18:26:20 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63861 comp.object:63483 comp.lang.ada:37363 comp.software-eng:19212 Date: 2003-05-15T18:26:20+00:00 List-Id: Robert I. Eachus wrote: > Preben Randhol wrote: > >> A great many things are possible, yet not practical. (Isaac Asimov) >> Or in other words you can probably make a huge complex system in >> assembly code, but it will take you a couple of decades to get the job >> done. > > Or it may be impossible. There have been several times I have thought > of creating a bug tracking system that tracks how many bugs are caused > by a previous "bug-fix." The number of such bugs for each earlier bug > is a major determinant of when existing software has become too > "brittle" and has to be replaced. I think what it indicates is that the development methods used are brittle--which leads to the brittle code. If you see the secondary bug to primary bug ratio consistently rising, the first thing to do is ask questions about who is managing the project, not about the software itself. Even the best software will have bad ratios if the people working on it are sloppy. Although it's not easy, I don't think it's rocket science to be able to make consistent progress. If, for every bug you hit, you always investigate why the bug happened, and then modify your approach accordingly, I don't think you can get into the spiral you're referring to. I think it only happens when people stop introspecting, and just blindly pull a bug off the top of the list and proceed with "fixing" it. A methodical approach can appear to be less efficient, and I'm sure it's the pressure to deliver that leads to many breaches in integrity to a proper engineering methodology. Of course, in the long run, such breaches always end up costing you more. A lot of software does deserve to be completely rewritten. But that should be apparent by how slow you have to go when adding features, not by ever-cascading bugs. On the contrary, if you see bugs spiraling out of control, that's evidence that you don't want that particular team and/or its management to undertake rewriting the system. Shayne Wissler