Quality Vs Speed: Paradox Lost? - Notes
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1 http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/354.html,
http://www.obgyn.net/eago/art15.htm 2 Patrick Thibodeau, "Study: Buggy software costs users, vendors nearly $60B annually." Computerworld, June 25, 2002. http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/itspending/
story/0,10801,72245,00.html Thanks to Brian Massey for pointing out this article.
3 http://programs.rational.com/success
4 http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/prime/articles/zeno_tort/index.asp
5 Robert M.Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. William Morrow, 1974.
6 Despite what some readers might see as complex and overly philosophical language, this is not as complicated as it might seem. Here's an example in terms of software development: Imagine you are happily coding away in your favorite IDE. You are totally focused on what you are coding, not on the IDE itself, or even on the computer running it. Suddenly, you need to perform some unfamiliar operation, which causes you to look through menus and help documentation. Now, if you find a simple, flexible way to perform that operation, you may think to yourself "What a great IDE this is!" Conversely, if you find that the only way to perform the operation seems complex, rigid, and frustrating, you will think "What a lousy so-called IDE!" In either case, according to Pirsig, you are now looking at the IDE as an entity by itself, whereas previously you were mystically "melded" with it, "one" with it, if you will. Your experience of the quality of the IDE, whether good or bad, causes your universe (and maybe even the universe) to split into you as the subject, and the IDE as the object. Without making that value judgement, you would simply have gone on coding, never giving the IDE a second thought. The best IDEs allow you to experience this "oneness" frequently, if not constantly; the worst ones are constantly reminding you how lousy they are.
7 Gerald M. Weinberg, Quality Software Management, Volume 1. Dorset House, 1991.
8 Walker Royce, Software Project Management: A Unified Framework. Addison Wesley, 1998.
Originally written by Lee Thomas.
Copyright (c) 2000-2003 IBM Corporation. All rights reserved
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