Tue, 24 Sep 2002 08:00:25 GMT

by Charles Miller on September 24, 2002

How about this for the worst product name in the Java space? Javaanal: Java documentation analysis utility![rebelutionary]

<rant>It does quite suit the application, though.

  • It's for examining Javadoc coverage, but it's written in Visual Basic, and hence single-platform.
  • It works by looking at the generated HTML instead of the source, so if you've got a non-standard doclet, it'll fall over and die.
  • It presumes to recommend word counts for Javadoc—from 200 words per interface definition to 10 words for each instance variable. This just reinforces my belief that Javadoc coverage tools don't encourage better documentation, they just encourage more documentation.
  • From the disclaimer: “HCi Consulting Pty Ltd would like to warn potential users that this product may provide misleading, dangerous, and just plain silly results if not used by our staff experts.” In other words, “If you're stupid enough to use this tool, you'll probably want to pay us for consulting, too.”</rant>

Edit: Ah. They're an ISO9000 consultancy, suddenly everything is clear. When I lived in Perth, I worked for an ISP. The owner ran an ISO9000 consultancy out of the same office. Whenever you added a new user, they had to be entered in four different places: the Unix passwd file, the contacts database, the accounting software and a paper file. This procedure led to the four sources of data never agreeing with each other, and obviously much hilarity ensuing therein.

The thing about ISO9000, though, is that any procedure is a good procedure, so long as it's documented. You could say “all new customers must be entered into the database using only your left hand, while standing on your head in a vat of cow dung”, and so long as that was written down on a sheet of paper and photocopied a thousand times, you'd still qualify for “Quality Management” If you've got a nice cover-sheet where you tick the boxes for each place you have to enter the information, the inconsistency becomes the fault of the employee, not of the overly complex steps he has to take.

Bleah.

I mentioned the bad state of affairs to my boss when I started, told him it'd probably take six months to write a replacement system (since I'd basically have to have done most of it myself), and that he'd better start now because the more the company grew, the harder it'd be to replace the broken system and transition to the new.

Needless to say, twelve months passed, the user-base grew by about a third and the number of different services being offered doubled. Then I was told to drop everything and start on the replacement system. Number one priority. I was also asked if I could have it done by the end of the month. Oh, and I couldn't really drop everything because I was also having to spend the next few weeks filling in for the system administrator who was on holiday, so I'd just have to do overtime to get it done.

It's about then that I started applying for jobs elsewhere.

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