A couple of years ago I ran across an article from Coverity about the challenges that they had getting people to use their tool. One of the most interesting was that the tool would find real bugs, but the developer wouldn't understand that the bug actually was real, and would say, "This tool is crap." Then they would not get a sale.
They had this problem particularly strongly with race conditions. There are a number of checks that they took out because, even though they were finding real bugs, developers were convincing themselves that the bugs were not real even though they really were.
It really does not help that the developers who are asked to evaluate are likely to be the same people who made the mistakes in the first place, so all kinds of defensive behavior are to be expected.
Ha, you're completely right. I've been brought in on several occasions to help my clients decide on which static code analysis tool to use after an evaluation period and I've encountered these situations too. But it helps if it's an outside consultant evaluating the product and not the developers themselves.
Through the years I've learned how to talk with developers about their bugs and how to help them get better in preventing it. It helps that I've been a developer for years too so I know where they're coming from and how they sometimes tend to get all defensive.
A couple of years ago I ran across an article from Coverity about the challenges that they had getting people to use their tool. One of the most interesting was that the tool would find real bugs, but the developer wouldn't understand that the bug actually was real, and would say, "This tool is crap." Then they would not get a sale.
They had this problem particularly strongly with race conditions. There are a number of checks that they took out because, even though they were finding real bugs, developers were convincing themselves that the bugs were not real even though they really were.
It really does not help that the developers who are asked to evaluate are likely to be the same people who made the mistakes in the first place, so all kinds of defensive behavior are to be expected.