Researchers Test Developer Biometrics To Predict Buggy Code 89
rjmarvin writes: Microsoft Research is testing a new method for predicting errors and bugs while developers write code: biometrics. By measuring a developer's eye movements, physical and mental characteristics as they code, the researchers tracked alertness and stress levels to predict the difficulty of a given task with respect to the coder's abilities. In a paper entitled "Using Psycho-Physiological Measures to Assess Task Difficulty in Software Development," the researchers summarized how they strapped an eye tracker, an electrodermal sensor and an EEG sensor to 15 developers as they programmed for various tasks. Biometrics predicted task difficulty for a new developer 64.99% of the time. For a subsequent tasks with the same developer, the researchers found biometrics to be 84.38% accurate. They suggest using the information to mark places in code that developers find particularly difficult, and then reviewing or refactoring those sections later.
Re:Why is it always developers? (Score:4, Insightful)
The world hates putting up with buggy code.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is it always developers? (Score:5, Insightful)
They can understand how a toilet is cleaned, how a sale is made, how a 1099 is filled out, how a fire drill works, how a sandwich is put together, how oil is changed, etc... but Coding might as well be a dark art.
Developers are part of a very narrow segment which has no reliable Key Performance Indicators. [wikipedia.org]
Part of that is developers are smart enough to game any system, because they can think in algorithms.
Want to track productivity on Lines of code? Fine, Developers can do NO WORK, and produce TONS of code
Want to track productivity on Number of defects introduced? Fine, doing NO WORK is the baseline for perfect.
Want to track productivity on Number of defects fixed? Fine, through the magic of hand wavery, defects can be found and fixed with no actual work happening
Compare that to well-defined Key Performance Indicators for sales... Bring in X dollars of sales, your performance is X.
CEOs HATE things they cannot measure... which means CEOs are a natural enemy of Developers.