IBM Trying To Patent Timed Code Inspection

theodp writes "A just-published IBM patent application for a Software Inspection Management Tool claims to improve software quality by taking a chess-clock-like approach to code walkthroughs. An inspection rate monitor with 'a pause button, a resume button, a complete button, a total lines inspected indication, and a total lines remaining to be inspected indication' keeps tabs on participants' progress and changes color when management's expectations — measured in lines per hour — are not being met."

Note to self:

[Weaselmancer]

Don't buy any IBM software after this awful thing gets approved.

And in case any management types happen to be reading this - programming isn't freaking bricklaying. You can't say "well the wall needs 120 bricks, and 1 person can lay 1 brick in one minute, so that's two hours work. Or 1 hour's worth of work for two people."

Read this book, [wikipedia.org] and then get back to us IBM.

Yeah, because nothing says quality code reviews...

[Scott Wood]

...like not being able to spend significantly more time on the tricky sections of code than on the routine stuff.

Re:Note to self:

[CodeBuster]

well the wall needs 120 bricks, and 1 person can lay 1 brick in one minute, so that's two hours work. Or 1 hour's worth of work for two people.

Unfortunately that is how "executive students" in crackerjack MBA degree programs around the country are taught to think about everyone else except themselves. Is it any wonder then that most of the top managers, the best board members, and the most intelligent CEOs are self made and taught men and women? The person who believes and applies exactly what is taught in business school without intelligent thought and reasonable allowance for the circumstances is not really an MBA, but an employee in manager's clothing who is in over his head and is too arrogant and too foolish to admit it, even to him or herself.

Quality...

[symbolic]

claims to improve software quality by taking a chess-clock-like approach to code walkthroughs

This is one of those patents based clearly on conjecture. Seriously - is there anyone stupid enough to try it, or anyone stupid enough to work in an environment that relies on this kind of QA?

The summary looks like misleading flamebait to me

[jesterzog]

I've only flicked through the patent application so far, but it doesn't seem very much like what the submitter makes out.

From what I can see, the implication that this has anything to do with management harassing the developers and testers is completely conjecture on the part of the slashdot submitter. The only context in which the word "manage" appears in the entire application is as part of the phrase "management tool", which to me implies that it's supposed to be entirely to help the testing and development staff. (Okay, there's one occurance which is "inspection process manager".)

I know that IBM has a famous history of having associated productivity with lines of code, but I really don't think they're being quite so dim-witted with this one. I haven't read the application in detail, but to me it looks more like someone's been developing a tool to help with code inspection. By the looks of it, it has a certain way of displaying the code, it has a method of recording noted defects and comments, and it has a feature of timing how long things are taking and how long a user is spending on certain parts of a code-base.

I can't see any direct implication in the patent application that this is primarily for management to measure staff performance to compare with pre-defined expectations. On the other hand I can see a lot of references in the patent application to the code inspector themselves using this tool to assist their work. I think it's much more likely that someone running an inspection could use such a tool to help them keep track of the most fragile parts of the code, and which areas are tying up the most of their time. If there was a deadline for inspection, it'd probably also help to highlight if you were spending far too much time in one place without having even reached other areas that might be important.

Whether it would work or be any use at all it another issue, but if it's a completely wacky idea then it wouldn't be the first that someone tried to patent. Many good patented ideas seemed silly or ridiculous before a working implementation was produced to demonstrate otherwise, but if an inventor had waited until it was clearly useful before patenting it, it'd be a lot harder.

Seen this

[ichbineinneuben]

Isn't this straight out of US Govt coding hell in Snowcrash? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowcrash [wikipedia.org]

Re:Note to self:

[RobBebop]

The person who believes and applies exactly what is taught in business school without intelligent thought and reasonable allowance for the circumstances is not really an MBA, but an employee in manager's clothing who is [in over his head ===> overhead] and is too arrogant and too foolish to admit it, even to him or herself.

Fixed that for you.

more ideas

[jesterzog]

(responding to my own post with more ideas) ...

I think it's much more likely that someone running an inspection could use such a tool to help them keep track of the most fragile parts of the code, and which areas are tying up the most of their time. If there was a deadline for inspection, it'd probably also help to highlight if you were spending far too much time in one place without having even reached other areas that might be important.

Other areas where such a tool might be useful are:

• For a QA team coordinator to identify and map parts of the code that are more difficult to understand, because quality control staff are spending more time to look through them
• To help track which parts of the code are most controversial (ie. subject to changes or suggestions by QA staff). Perhaps the same code keeps getting read and re-read over and over again, which might imply something about the code.
• To identify which parts of the code QA staff really don't want to look at closely. (Perhaps they quickly move somewhere else every time they reach it, or stop the clock to go and get coffee or whatever.) It might signal a need to look more closely at the code and see why that's happening.

The Slashdot summary seems to mis-represent the chess clock idea along with everything else. If there's a case where it's actually useful to accurately know how much time you're spending on something and where you're spending it, it could be very helpful. If I had my own reasons for using such a tool, I could see every reason to hit start and stop buttons when I temporarily left what I was doing.

And yes I'm sure it could be used by a dim-witted PHB to try and measure performance of and put pressure on QA analysts. But if management wants to do that then it's a problem with them rather than what might be a potentially useful QA tool. If you have that kind of manager then you can be fairly sure they'll find ways to make your work experience unrewarding with or without such a tool.