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."

sounds fantastic

I know I'm most careful and attentive to detail when I feel like someone's looking over my shoulder timing my progress.

Re:sounds fantastic

I know I'm most careful and attentive to detail when I feel like someone's looking over my shoulder timing my progress.

Most people are more "careful and attentive to" looking like they're busy, as opposed to actually thinking about the problem at hand, when someone's looking over their shoulder.

Yes, we need better metrics to determine performance. However, we should do our Jedi Knight code warrior hand-waving thing and say "these are not the metrics you're looking for." This is a sop to cover up inadequacies (in both the people managing, and their methodologies) the previous steps to the development process. Where is the story mod, with a "-1 Fucktarded" option, when we need it?

Might not be a bad thing to patent.

If it means that only IBM employees have to put up with this particular form of pointy-haired manager bullshit.

-jcr

Perhaps a good patent

which they'll use to sue anyone who's dumb enough to use this technique

What it means

changes color when management's expectations...are not being met.

Translation: Your PHB needs it color coded to know what's going on.

Note to self:

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.

Re:

I've given you 9 women and 6 weeks...... WHERE IS THE BABY !!!!

Re:

... or seek assistance from certain overseas adoption agencies that might be interested in such a trade.

...and we are back to outsourcing....

Re:

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 intel

Re:Note to self:

Do you hear that? That's the loud roar of all the people you just described patting themselves on the back for not being one of the people you just described.

Re:

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.

Yeah, because nothing says quality code reviews...

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

What about code WRITING speed???

I get dibs on the patent for measuring whether programmers meet management expectations for lines of code per hour!

In fact, I think programmers should meet management expectations for keystrokes per second including backspace! I mean backspace means the programmer is correcting his mistakes!!!

Re:

I get dibs on the patent for measuring whether programmers meet management expectations for lines of code per hour!

OK but I call dibs on the patent for software that measures if managers are alienating and burning out their underlings at the specified ra

what a stupid stupid idea

"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 expec

That was my other thought

Right Wally. so, you write line after line of utterly meaningless horseshit to keep your line count up, and then route the data to a place where it gets commented out... and then follow that with line after line of craptastic documentation.

Bingo, sir. Programmers are excellent at beating the system. That's our job. Figuring out systems.

You're gonna see a lot of code like this:

for(
// i holds the count
int i=0;
// The next line makes sure we count to ten
i<=10;
// This increments

Re:what a stupid stupid idea

Someone I know was told to increase lines-of-code output by 20%, not counting comments. He immediately complied and exceeded expectations by switching to K&R style, declaring function variables on separate lines instead of inline, and placing { on a separate line.
He was ready to place semicolons on a separate line too, if management wanted even higher efficiency.

Re:what a stupid stupid idea

If I am understanding this correctly, the article refers to lines inspected, not written. So this is for the quality-control guys and not the main programmers.

Quality...

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?

Re:

perhaps IBM is not being evil and is merely patenting this to ensure that no one will be able to use this "method".

Metropolis....

This reminds me of:

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). Excellent movie BTW.

The worker at the power plant collapses during a a shift which was too long and required to many new operations demanded by a clock-like device. The power plant nearly explodes, because he can not keed up with the pace of this clock-like device.

The summary looks like misleading flamebait to me

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.

more ideas

(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

-2000 Lines Of Code

After optimizing Quickdraw with a rewrite that saved around 2,000 lines of code, Bill Atkinson dutifully filled out the form Apple management used to measure software productivity, completing the lines of code part by writing in the number -2000 [folklore.org].

Seen this

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