In the field of software development, managers need measurable metrics to appreciate the performance of their programmers. Shahar Yair and Steve McConnell discuss common techniques focusing on source lines of code and function points. They highlight the limitations of these approaches and seek to define some principles that could guide the analysis of programmers’ performance.
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On JAOO 2007 I could, with the help of Floyd, organize a debate between Bob Martin and James Coplien about TDD and DbC. This is the most interesting debate about the subject I’ve ever heard of. A lot of things I wanted to say have been said here. And I am proud to announce it
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/coplien-martin-tdd
Thanks Cope, thanks Bob.
Today, many software project management and architecture approaches tend to parcel out work on a project creating hierarchical layers. This helps to simplify both developers work and management. However, the undelying information shielding among layers can potentially create a gap between developers and the software they are working on, if developers task are totally taken out of functional context.
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This post has been originally posted on infoQ on Religion driven industry: buzzwords and checklists vs. thinking and inspection
James O. Coplien has recently argued that today’s industry is based on buzzwords and checklists. The use of some techniques and methodologies, TDD for instance, has become “a religious issue”. This prevents from inspecting possible tradeoffs and focusing on finding solutions that would be the most appropriate and the most cost-effective . (more…)