Objective metrics are a PITA because you end up skewing the resulting effort
to favor the metric. Here are some with their negative effects

lines of code   =>       prefer long code to reusable code. Copy and Paste
is a cash-cow
# builds broken / some period     =>     don't check in very frequently
which results in harder integrations and more rework
avg difference between estimate and actuals     =>       pad your estimates
out and then make sure it takes that long
passing unit tests written    =>      lots of useless brittle tests
bugs found during code review    =>    code reviews somehow don't get done**

** Actually this metric can be OK if you are rewarding the finder and not
punishing the author (although this could lead to a buddy system where one
dev leaves in bugs for their mates to find). Just be aware that this works
for a while and then the quality of the code goes up and the metric will
probably dip back down.

What is the intent of collecting the metrics? Is it for a standalone
performance evaluation or a long-running improvement monitoring thing? Is
there a concern to be addressed? Or is it just Friday?


On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Eddie de Bear <[email protected]>wrote:

> lol, one of the places I worked (years ago) that happened. I didn't write
> the code, but I was told to run it through an obfuscator before the code was
> handed over. The main reason was to strip out all the comments AND nasty
> variable names..
>
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 11:18 AM, David Richards <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Until you later find out the client also bought the source code and you
>> have to give it to them.  I've had this happen with a couple of projects.
>> Fortunately, I'm a polite commentor.  :)
>>
>> David
>>
>> "If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes
>> will fall like a house of cards... checkmate!"
>> -Zapp Brannigan, Futurama
>>
>>
>>   On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 11:11, Eddie de Bear <[email protected]>wrote:
>>
>>> Ratio of Code to Coments complaining about the client.. That's always a
>>> good way to go ;)
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Eddie de Bear
> Mob: 0417066315
> Messenger: [email protected]
> Skype: eddiedebear
>



-- 
Michael M. Minutillo
Indiscriminate Information Sponge
Blog: http://wolfbyte-net.blogspot.com

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