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

Scott E. Preece wrote:

> | From: "J. B. Rainsberger" <[email protected]>
> | Scott E. Preece wrote:
> | 
> | > If you argue that a particular piece of code is likely to be worked on
> | > more than once in the course of a project, I would point out that that
> | > means it would be inspected more than once, too...
> | 
> | Would it? I have never been on such a project. Have you?
> ---
> 
> Our rule is that ALL code changes are inspected. Inspection is supposed
> to involve the changed code plus enough of the code that it depends on
> and that depend on it so assure that the change is correct.  We make
> consumer products - defects are bet-the-company expensive.  We feel
> completely justified in having multiple defect-removal processes in the
> lifecycle.

All right. It is certainly domain-specific. It sounds like you need it 
and you do it. Unfortunately, many projects that need it don't do it and 
many projects that do it don't need it.

<snip />
> I tried to make clear that the numbers I cited were specific examples
> that fall within wider reported ranges.  The ranges represent a lot of
> different studies and anecdotes and are impossible to compare directly
> (in the Utah study, for instance, the quality improvement was actually
> "passed 15% more of the test set", which is not even vaguely the same
> thing as "removed 15% more defects").
> 
> And, as noted elsewhere, I DO believe both pair programming and
> test-first are very good things to do, I just don't believe that they
> make inspections unnecessary, where the cost of excaped defects is
> high.

OK. I'll agree that as the cost of defects increases, the value of 
inspections increases, and probably quite rapidly. I think we're in 
agreement, but we took different routes to get there.
-- 
J. B. Rainsberger,
Diaspar Software Services
http://www.diasparsoftware.com :: +1 416 791-8603
Let's write software that people understand

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