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Asymptotically Approaching Useful Developer Metrics

4 pointsby estherschindlerover 17 years ago

1 comment

davidwover 17 years ago
"We're putting new cover sheets on all of our TPS reports now before they go out, didn't you get the memo?"<p>Joking aside, it's not an easy problem. I would have liked to hear more about the nitty gritty details of what these new systems are supposed to be measuring.<p>At a more general level, it's a manifestation of the principal-agent problem (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem</a>) which is caused by information asymmetries - the programmer knows more than the boss about what's really going on.<p>Compounding the problem is that even the programmer can't predict "black swan" types of issues that come up and blow things up in a big way.