Nigel Cheshire

Bad code abounds, and the cost to fix it is expensive. A 2002 federal study found that software errors and bugs in code cost the U.S. economy nearly $60 billion a year. And a study conducted by The Standish Group reports a 27-month backlog on end-user requests for application enhancements. With bugs and enhancements coming out of the same budgets, only the loudest voices are heard. Many organizations with overrun projects have development teams that spend most of their time fixing bugs, fighting fires and leaping from one crisis to the next. Meanwhile, the “too little, too ... (more)

Why Coding Standards?

Show me code written by ten developers and I'll show you ten different coding styles. So why try to develop and enforce coding standards? Who cares what a program looks like as long as it works? The primary reason for adopting coding standards is to make it easier for developers to read and understand each other's code. Although peer reviews are relatively new, most developers maintain.or... (more)

Can You Manage What You Can't Measure?

Nigel Cheshire's Blog Considering the main headline on our web site is “What gets measured gets managed”, I was interested to read Chris Loosley's post today considering whether the common claim that “you can’t manage what you can’t (or don’t) measure” is fact or fallacy. The argument against the claim is that as a species, we manage things that we ... (more)

No Silver Bullets

Nigel Cheshire's Blog David Seruyange pointed me to a great presentation by Yahoo! Javascript Architect Douglas Crockford on software quality. At least, “Quality” is the title of the presentation, but in fact Crockford gives a wonderful history lesson, showing how we got to where we are today. This is a 48-minute presentation, and well worth the time. If you don’t have ... (more)