How software doesn’t work

The December 1995 issue of Byte included an article on Why software doesn’t work which makes several points relevant to group projects.

Capability maturity model

Chaos

No process in place; ad hoc management is the driving force.

Repeatable

Introduces project planning and tracking, and puts project management in place.

Defined

Processes become documented and standardized. Includes requirements management, project planning and project tracking.

Managed

Measures project status and feeds that information back to project leaders. Project managers set targets, plan for desired quality and create a process to meet those targets.

Optimised

Continuing improvement. Key focus areas include defect prevention, technology-change mangement and process-change mangement.

Five easy steps toward disaster

• Pile on the features
• Target heterogeneous environments
• Test inadequately
• Document poorly
• When in doubt, vacillate

Nine ways to write more reliable software

• Fight for a stable design
• Cleanly divide up tasks
• Avoid shortcuts
• Use assertions liberally
• Use tools judiciously
• Rely on fewer programmers
• Diligently fight featuritis
• Use formal methods where appropriate
• Begin testing once you write the first line of code