Re: Programmers Nostrums

[Jenda]

Formal process doesn't improve code quality. It just increases the delays and annoys the developers.

Having each and every code release approved by ten people that know nothing about the code changes and would not understand the code even if they tried, doesn't increase security. Just the feel of it.

Making changes on production is dangerous. As such it should be done by someone who understands the application and the changes being released. Do you really think a separate "release engineer team" who is in charge of releases for all the company's aplication, blindly following a "release plan" is a good idea?

---

A small example of code that got through a massive formal process and had been on prod for some time now:

sub syb_executeQuerySingleValue {
    my $query = shift;
    my $dbh = shift;
    my $val = undef;
    $recordSize = executeQuerySingleValue($query,$dbh) ;
    return $recordSize ;
}

A little gem isn't it? But it takes about three hours to fill in all the fields in all the request/issue/bug/whatever tracknig systems and write all the required documents to eventualy after several weeks get a five line change in a single script to production.