Inspections Was: RE: [AM] ANN: Mashing Deadly Myths

From: Scott Ambler [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 9:15 AM
> Inspections are great compensatory practice
> when you're not able to adopt practices such
> as collective ownership, coding/modeling standards,
> continuous integration, and pair programming/modeling
> with others.

There is nothing wrong with post-hoc "inspections", nor are they
"compensatory". I don't particularly like the use of that word too. It is
subtly (or not too subtly) elitist. I suppose they could be ineffectively
used, especially in the hands of an inexperienced person implementing a
process/system of software development without any understanding of their
purpose, but then again, the same could be said of things like continuous
integration.

IMO, inspections (or reviews) cannot be replaced by any of Scott's
suggestions, although those practices will likely lower the chances of
anything untoward coming out of an inspection. However, a *team* can
incorrectly design a software solution. Collective ownership or pair
programming won't prevent a "team error" from happening, especially if the
project on the cutting-edge of technology.

OTOH, if done, they [inspections/reviews] must be done by a third-party not
emotionally, intellectually or otherwise invested into the current codebase.
This third-party could be another group inside the company, or perhaps
outside. Hopefully, the next goes without saying but, for the sake of
maintaining agility, it is important to recognize that not all projects
require this level of scrutiny. I'd use reviews, *with* the above practices
that Scott limits himself to, on the projects that call for it.

What some often miss is that one should see inspections as a "second
opinion" mechanism. You don't ask the doctor who just told you your cancer
is incurable the same question again, do you? And, you don't limit yourself
to the knowledge of one doctor, do you? No. So, you ask around. Another
analogy: How often do you miss a grammatical error in a text, simply because
you are the one who wrote it?

_________________________________
Paul Tiseo, Systems Programmer
Research Computing Facility
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, Griffin 371
[email protected]

For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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