On 1/16/2015 2:28 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
On 1/16/15 2:17 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
I've worked at companies that would rate engineers based on the "bug
count". That ended very badly, it was so bad it was comical, how working
that number actually wrecked the quality of the product. I've seen
similar disasters with use of metrics on inventory minimization, and
others. Ever since it has made me deeply suspicious about basing quality
on such numbers.
One anecdote is what it is. There is a lot of value in informative proxies. --
Andrei
Informative is fine. Basing decisions on metrics unleavened by contextual
judgement isn't going to work well.
It isn't just one metric. I've personally seen it multiple times with various
metrics, and regularly read in the news about counterproductive results obtained
by using metrics absent judgement. The "zero tolerance" policies schools have
are a stellar example, where students get punished for chewing a pizza into the
shape of a gun.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/12/daniel-zimmerman/zero-tolerance-idiot-of-the-day-principal-steve-luker/
Want more? Consider "work to rule" tactics used by unions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
I agree we have a problem with good PRs left twisting in the wind. Deleting them
simply because they are old is worse.
