At 12:25 PM 11/15/99 -0600, Don Hyde wrote:
>I once worked with a group of ex-IBM assembler jocks.  They had a very
>strict rule requiring 2 comments for every 3 lines of assembler code.
>
......
>
>Trying to achieve good code by having simple-minded rules not only doesn't
>work, but positively invites rebellious behavior from the best programmers.
>It'll never turn the bad programmers into good ones, but it'll piss off the
>good ones every time.
>

Yes, indeed.  IBM also trying applying metrics to programmer productivity
back in the late 1960's.  That is they kept meticulous records of the number
of lines of code produced by each programmer each month and the number of
bugs found in that code.  What they got was voluminous code with few
subroutines.  Programmers it seemed, having debugged a subroutine, would
simply copy it inline everytime they wanted to call the routine.

Bob McClure