<story><title>Cannot Measure Productivity</title><url>http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>I am going to get my drum out and bang on it again.&lt;p&gt;Software is a form of literacy - and we measure literacy completely differently.  In fact we measure it like we measure science - you are not a scientist unless other scientists agree you are, and you are not a coder unless other coders say you are.&lt;p&gt;What Fowler wants to measure is not the top echelons of productivity but the lower bounds - presumably to winnow out the unproductive ones.&lt;p&gt;But that is not how we conduct ourselves in literacy or science.  We &lt;i&gt;educate and train&lt;/i&gt; people for a very long time, so that the lower bound of productivity is still going to add value to human society - and the upper bounds are limitless.&lt;p&gt;What Fowler is asking for is a &lt;i&gt;profession&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>foobarbazqux</author><text>&amp;gt; you are not a scientist unless other scientists agree you are&lt;p&gt;Science requires one thing: making and testing falsifiable hypotheses.  A priest is able to determine whether or not you are doing that.  If anything, it&amp;#x27;s philosophers who decide what science is, e.g. Karl Popper.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cannot Measure Productivity</title><url>http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>I am going to get my drum out and bang on it again.&lt;p&gt;Software is a form of literacy - and we measure literacy completely differently.  In fact we measure it like we measure science - you are not a scientist unless other scientists agree you are, and you are not a coder unless other coders say you are.&lt;p&gt;What Fowler wants to measure is not the top echelons of productivity but the lower bounds - presumably to winnow out the unproductive ones.&lt;p&gt;But that is not how we conduct ourselves in literacy or science.  We &lt;i&gt;educate and train&lt;/i&gt; people for a very long time, so that the lower bound of productivity is still going to add value to human society - and the upper bounds are limitless.&lt;p&gt;What Fowler is asking for is a &lt;i&gt;profession&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skrebbel</author><text>I agree with what you&amp;#x27;re saying, but I feel that it&amp;#x27;s exactly what Fowler is saying too. The article is called &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;cannot&lt;/i&gt; measure productivity&amp;quot;, after all.&lt;p&gt;What parts of what he writes do you disagree with?</text></comment>