Hello Pascal!

Replying to a message of Pascal Schmidt to Jonathan Guthrie:

 JG>> From the programmer's perspective, the assessment of blame is
 JG>> important because it helps you determine what not to do the next
 JG>> time.  That  sort of feedback is essential to the CMM as it helps
 JG>> improve the  process.  If you don't know how it got broke you can't
 JG>> determine how  not to break it next time.
 PS> I don't see it. The mistake could be pointed out to all programmers,
 PS> not only the one who made it in the first place. Let all programmers
 PS> learn, no need to put "blame" on anyone.

There's two ways I take that.

1. Public humliation.  Point out a programmer's mistakes to all.
2. "Why the **** am I being told this crap - I didn't do it!"

Blame is great since it targets the corrective action to the person(s)
requiring correction.  Sometimes that blame is on a person's code,
sometimes on someone else's design.  (Usually that's my manager, but that's
another story.  When he leaves the rest of the design team alone, we
usually come out with ideas that don't suck nearly as much.)  Here's one
way I know others take the "let everyone learn" tactic:

3. "Wasn't me, so I can keep doing it."  <-- usually only the
people who really did make that mistake.

When the blame is given by a senior programmer or manager (senior or not)
directly to the person who needs the improvement, it's a lot harder to
mentally rationalise that it wasn't you.

Darin

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