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> “Defects are the fault of programmers” may sound good, but it does nothing to help us fix defects. The utility you gain by believing or disbelieving a statem

> “Defects are the fault of programmers” may sound good, but it does nothing to help us fix defects. The utility you gain by believing or disbelieving a statement has no bearing on its truthfulness.

mjw1007 6y ago
I think the discussion here is about how we should use the term "fault". I don't think it's the case that we all have shared definition of exactly what "fault" means, leaving us only to deduce from that where the fault for defects lies. So I don't think the maxim you stated is helpful here.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
If a statement about the nature of defects doesn't aid in fixing defects, it almost certainly doesn't fully capture the nature of defects.
reactivenz 6y ago
I see the flip side, the "cost" on being made the "escape goat" because the lens is only the developer is a fault. Verse the team owning the complete system. Which is still a toxic mindset to be trying to minimize perceived punishment. Or if the environment is not collectively responsible aka blaming then that is the problem. But the high level point of framing I think is very on point. You can only justify altering that which you measure, and if you only blame/measure/inspect the developer, you are missing stuff.
tom-thistime 6y ago
That might or might not be accurate, but I still care about utility. There are a lot of truths that don't have any utility for me. I celebrate not knowing most of those truths. I mean do you want to be on this call? ... A: "One point seven million dung beetles can fit in my suitcase." B: "Let's get back to work." A: "Utility has no bearing on truthfulness."
- tengbretson 6y ago
  I do not want to be on that call. However, if following this exchange, person B goes on to write a blog post titled "One point seven million dung beetles CAN NOT fit in my suitcase" and justifies this claim by saying that knowing how many dung beetles fit in a suitcase is not a useful thing to know, then despite how right they are about the utility, their conclusion is wrong.
  - tom-thistime 6y ago
    Sure. They should claim "it doesn't matter," not "it's false." By the end of the article I felt the author said something like "substitute more design space and dev activity for blame analysis."

mjw1007 6y ago

I think the discussion here is about how we should use the term "fault". I don't think it's the case that we all have shared definition of exactly what "fault" means, leaving us only to deduce from that where the fault for defects lies. So I don't think the maxim you stated is helpful here.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

If a statement about the nature of defects doesn't aid in fixing defects, it almost certainly doesn't fully capture the nature of defects.

reactivenz 6y ago

I see the flip side, the "cost" on being made the "escape goat" because the lens is only the developer is a fault. Verse the team owning the complete system. Which is still a toxic mindset to be trying to minimize perceived punishment. Or if the environment is not collectively responsible aka blaming then that is the problem. But the high level point of framing I think is very on point. You can only justify altering that which you measure, and if you only blame/measure/inspect the developer, you are missing stuff.

tom-thistime 6y ago

That might or might not be accurate, but I still care about utility. There are a lot of truths that don't have any utility for me. I celebrate not knowing most of those truths. I mean do you want to be on this call? ... A: "One point seven million dung beetles can fit in my suitcase." B: "Let's get back to work." A: "Utility has no bearing on truthfulness."

tengbretson 6y ago
I do not want to be on that call. However, if following this exchange, person B goes on to write a blog post titled "One point seven million dung beetles CAN NOT fit in my suitcase" and justifies this claim by saying that knowing how many dung beetles fit in a suitcase is not a useful thing to know, then despite how right they are about the utility, their conclusion is wrong.
- tom-thistime 6y ago
  Sure. They should claim "it doesn't matter," not "it's false." By the end of the article I felt the author said something like "substitute more design space and dev activity for blame analysis."