Slashdot Mirror
Code Quality Predicted Using Biometrics (vice.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Swiss researchers are unveiling "a not at all sinister-sounding system capable of predicting the quality of code produced by developers based on their biometric data," according to Motherboard. "By looking at the programmer as they program, rather than the code after the programmer is done writing it, the system described by the Zurich researchers finds code quality issues as the code is being produced... By using heart rate information, for example, they were able to quantify the difficulty a given programmer had in producing a piece of software. This information could then be used to identify likely sections of bad code..."
In a paper to be presented at an Austin engineering conference this week, the researchers write that "Delaying software quality concerns, such as defects or poor understandability of the code, increases the cost of fixing them," calling their system an improvement over code reviews, even automated ones. "Biometrics helped to automatically detect 50 percent of the bugs found in code reviews and outperformed traditional metrics in predicting all quality concerns found in code reviews."
On the other hand, Motherboard likened the stress level for programmers to "a coding interview that never ends where you also happen to be naked. "
In a paper to be presented at an Austin engineering conference this week, the researchers write that "Delaying software quality concerns, such as defects or poor understandability of the code, increases the cost of fixing them," calling their system an improvement over code reviews, even automated ones. "Biometrics helped to automatically detect 50 percent of the bugs found in code reviews and outperformed traditional metrics in predicting all quality concerns found in code reviews."
On the other hand, Motherboard likened the stress level for programmers to "a coding interview that never ends where you also happen to be naked. "
that all my code is terrible.
When I'm in a coding interview that never ends where I also happen to be naked, that tips me off right away that I'm dreaming. Seriously, I can walk through a doorway or climb through a window and suddenly all my clothes vanish at once and everyone is looking at me. So when this happens, I instantly know, aha, this is a dream. So I start telling people that I'm lucid dreaming, that they don't actually exist, and that I'm stuck in this fake dreamworld that I can't escape but where nothing I do or say really matters anyway.
Typically these nonexistent people will say, "Wow, it must suck to know you're trapped in a dream naked... but anyway how do you write a recursive function that can detect a cycle in a linked list?" Questions like that usually make me forget that I'm dreaming.
Obviously we need programmers to work in interactive debuggers at all times, and, when the environment detects a bug, it gives the developer an electric shock.
As a lead software tester in a former life (I currently do government IT work), I've always requested the use of a cattle prod when talking to the programmers about they think the user is supposed to do with the application and what I've proven user can do to crash the application. "Users don't do that!" isn't a valid excuse for not fixing a crash bug. My requests for the cattle prods were always denied by management.
not validating inputs is the best example
but it sill happens.
There, you proved it!
-- Make America hate again!
Worse: some PHB will mix up cause and effect, and spike the coffee machines on the coder's floor with anti-anxiety pills and Metoprolol, in an effort to reduce stress and heart rates thus improving software quality.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It's all spaghetti code in the end
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.