Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Statistical evidence that code review is worth it. (Score 1) 345

For some statistical evidence (built on a very small sample size) that code review is worth it, see this section of a chapter from O'Reilly Media's book Beautiful Teams:

    http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel/beautiful-teams/bt-chapter-21.html#gumption-sink

That section is not about code review per se (it's about how a seemingly trivial interface decision affected code review), but it includes some code review stats from two projects, and discusses how frequently one project's code review catches mistake from previous changes.

(Disclaimer: I wrote the chapter, but it seems pertinent enough to this discussion to be worth posting.)

--Karl Fogel

Education

Submission + - "Planetary Astronomer Mike" gaining a foll (blogspot.com)

kfogel writes: "Not sure this is a story, but the site Dear Planetary Astronomer Mike is gaining a sizeable following among techies. It's sort of like Dan Savage, but for astronomy instead of sex. Planetary Astronomer Mike gives extremely entertaining and readable answers, while still going into non-trivial scientific detail. And he includes great images and diagrams when necessary. It's a geek's delight; after seeing him consistently answer questions really well, I thought it worthy of Slashdot notice. (Disclaimer: I am not Planetary Astronomer Mike, and I don't write for the site, but he has answered my questions before.)"

Comment What is the book's license? (Score 1) 232

A lot of free software documentation is released under free licenses these days. Was this? Or maybe a non-free but still liberal license like CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial or something?

(Might be good to tweak the Slashdot book review guidelines to make stating the license a standard part of these reviews...)

Microsoft

Submission + - Perceptive post compares Microsoft now to IBM then (red-bean.com)

kfogel writes: "Ben Collins-Sussman wrote a very perceptive blog post after reading the "Microsoft Pleads With Consumers to Adopt Vista Now" story today. He notes that a similar situation spelled the beginning of the end of IBM's dominance in the 1980's: although IBM set the hardware standards for a while, the market eventually moved beyond them, and the day came when IBM introduced a standard and *everybody ignored it*. Ben was in high-school then, and writes: "I remember thinking to myself 'Wow, this is a big deal. It's the beginning of the end for IBM.' And I was right! ... Well, I just had that same moment again [about Microsoft]". An excellent read and a spot-on analogy, IMHO. The URL is: http://blog.red-bean.com/sussman/?p=69"
Editorial

Submission + - You *Can* Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source

kfogel writes: "I'm submitting "Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright" as a response to Greg Bulmash's piece from yesterday ("You Can't Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source"). I think there were a number of flaws and mistaken assumptions in Greg Bulmash's reasoning, and I've tried to address them in this rebuttal, which has undergone review from some colleagues in the copyright-reform community."

Slashdot Top Deals

Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin

Working...