Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [quality]

124 questions
117
votes
18 answers

Dealing with engineers that frequently leave their jobs

My friend is a project manager for a software company. The most frustrating thing for him is that his engineers frequently leave their jobs. The company works hard to recruit new engineers, transfer projects, and keep a stable quality product. When…
卢声远 Shengyuan Lu
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72
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10 answers

Clean readable code vs fast hard to read code. When to cross the line?

When I write code I always try to make my code as clean and readable as possible. Every now and then there comes a time when you need to cross the line and go from nice clean code to slightly uglier code to make it faster. When is it OK to cross…
Ken Cochrane
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65
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31 answers

Why isn't software as reliable as a car?

I had a user ask me this question. We know that cars break down, but that's because of something physical (unless software is involved!). I tried to answer that software is a much younger industry, but the user countered with "didn't the automobile…
Alex Angas
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48
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8 answers

Is the average number of bugs per loc the same for different programming languages?

I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages. 10 KLOC of Ruby would have the same number of bugs as 10 KLOC of c++. The argument is usually used to promote the use of…
Kristian
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39
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8 answers

Are there architecture smells?

There are tons of resources on the web referring to and listing code smells. However, I've never seen information on architectural smells. Is this defined somewhere, and is there a list available? Has any formal research been done into…
C. Ross
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37
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17 answers

Software Design: Build it fast or build it well?

When building a non-trivial application, is it best to focus on getting things working quickly, and taking shortcuts in the code like mixing model logic with your views, breaking encapsulation - typical code smells? Or, are you better off taking the…
Pedro Estrada
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32
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21 answers

Is Software Testing Really Needed?

I'm a student working on my B.E(CS) and my question is the following: Is testing in the software field needed? If we create a software with great care, then why should we test? After testing can we be sure that we have achieved this goal (the…
Ant's
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29
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3 answers

What is the term for a 'decoy' feature or intentional bug?

I have forgotten a slang programming term. This thing is an intentional bug or a decoy feature used as a distraction. An example usage, "Hey Bob, QA is doing a review today. Put a $THING into the module so they actually have a problem to find". This…
Freiheit
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24
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1 answer

What is the effect of creating unit tests during development on time to develop as well as time spent in maintenance activities?

I'm a consultant and I am going to introduce unit tests to all developers at my client site. My goal is to ensure that all new applications should have unit tests for all classes created. The client has a problem with high maintenance costs from…
jgauffin
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21
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4 answers

How to create a "cult of quality"

DeMarco and Lister (Peopleware) suggest you create a "cult of quality" within your programming team. Frustratingly, they don't suggest how you go about doing that! Anyone got any thoughts on how to accomplish this?
Craig Schwarze
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20
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14 answers

When is it okay to ship a product with a known bug?

When is it okay to ship a product with a known bug?
Pritam Karmakar
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20
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3 answers

Is there a measure of code rot?

I'm dealing, again, with a messy C++ application, tons of classes with confusing names, objects have pointers into each other and all over, longwinded Boost and STL data types, etc. (Pause and consider your favorite terror of messy legacy code. We…
DarenW
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20
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7 answers

Manager wants a combined development & production environment

I work in a small programming team supporting a larger organisation. This year our manager has decided we are going to use Oracle Apex technologies to handle the vast majority of our company data. This would be ok, except we only have one Apex…
Anon
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17
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7 answers

How do big companies of software developers check for bugs in their programs?

I was wondering how big companies of software developers check for bugs in their programs. Do they just test it on several computers?
dinbrca
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16
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2 answers

How to determine the effectiveness of a code review process?

We've introduced a code review process within our organisation and it seems to be working well. However, I would like to be able to measure the effectiveness of the process over time, i.e. are we not finding bugs because the code is clean or are…
Johnv2020
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