It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.
The title is a quote by Edwards Deming. This quote applies to software as much as it applies to other industries.
Software industry as like most other industries is very data-driven, we use telemetry & Key Performances Indicators (KPIs) to understand our services and operations.
Software quality is one aspect that is difficult to measure. There are metrics like test coverage, cyclomatic complexity & number of operational incidents etc. to measure software quality. Although these metrics are necessary but they are definitely not sufficient.
Readability of variable & method names is one area of quality that is difficult to measure. Besides, modularity of software can technically be measured by cohesion and coupling metrics, but there is a risk of false positives. These aspects of quality have an element of subjectivity or dependence on specific business needs.
Having expressed the difficulty in measuring these aspects, I believe it is still possible to manage these by having right guidelines and code review processes. More importantly these can be managed by developing the culture of clean code that is imbibed in every member of the team. The solution has more to do with the judgment and common sense rather than identifying complex proxies for measuring readability and modularity.
References
https://deming.org/myth-if-you-cant-measure-it-you-cant-manage-it/
https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html
https://hbr.org/2010/10/what-cant-be-measured
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