The Joel Test, how does it work?

Question

I came across the following sentence below.

"We scored 11/12 points on "The Joel Test", which measures the quality of software development within our company. "

What’s this about? How does The Joel Test work? It’s really a software quality meter?

Answer 1

What is

This is Joel Test (In Portuguese).

It does not measure software quality, although some believe it does. In fact some believe that it is possible to quantify the quality of the software, when in fact it only gives to quantify some criteria about defects. The test does not even fall into this error, and it is very simple. Basically the answers are "yes" or "no" for 12 items.

• You use code control?
• You can compile in just one step?
• You make daily compilations?
• You have a database of bugs?
• You fix the bugs before writing new code?
• You have an updated schedule?
• You have a specification?
• Programmers have quiet working conditions?
• You use the best tools money can buy?
• You have testers?
• New candidates write code during interview?
• You do corridor usability testing?

Looking at the items we see that it gives an indication of the team’s maturity in adopting some techniques and methodologies that Joel believes are important.

Anyone who is not naive realizes that they can adopt all this and produce completely deficient software. In fact this is true for the adoption of any methodology. That’s what I always say: doing right is what matters.

Of course it is interesting to have some parameters. Lists like this help to think about the subject, but you have to know when to follow or not.

As a general idea are excellent recommendations, but have case that stay below 12 is the best thing you can do. Trying to "pass the test" at all costs is nonsense.

Test motivation

Understand that Joel started his blog a lot to publicize his company that produces tools for developers. A lot of what he says makes a lot of sense, after all he is an experienced developer having worked on what is probably the best software from Microsoft (or was until they started screwing up). But he has his own goal with the blog, don’t lose sight of it. That said, I recommend reading almost every article he published. He has a genuine interest in improving the quality of developers.

The test also helps sell his company as a nice place to work. One of the goals of the blog has always been to attract the best talent to his company. What shows his entrepreneurial quality, he knows he can’t produce good results with mediocre developers. To win the best minds, you need to offer what others don’t offer and you need to make everyone know it.

So very likely the phrase quoted in the question comes from someone who is doing the same thing, they want to sell you that there is a good place to work. So they get thousands of resumes and can select the best.

Don’t take the test so seriously

Some people disagree with him. There are people who think that more important things are missing and there are people who think they have things that don’t say much for the direct quality of the development environment. In the background each one can study the subject and make their own list. There are some variations out there (look for in English for updated). Opinion of the author himself.

Who uses the Stack Overflow Jobs knows that advertisers are encouraged to respond to Joel Test, so it has become another marketing tool.