A tool with a fool, it's still a tool ;)

Two weeks ago a colleague came to me extremely happy, jumping like a happy Bunny to ask me if I could use the only license of NDepend that we have in the firm to get the metrics and the graphics of his new code he was proud of. Eight months back in time, we bought this tool, because I downloaded a trial version that I tried for... well, now I don't remember if it was 14 days or a month. But I was quite satisfied with it, so I asked to get a license. And I was listened. ;)

But the funny part of this story is that at that time, when I first tried it, this colleague came to me (this time not like happy Bunny) a told me "Good programmers don't need tools. I don't mean to offend you, but a fool with a tool, it's still a fool."... Now he's asking if he can get his own license too.

The interesting part of this, it's not in fact to say that "people who lives in glass houses should never throw stones", but to point out the motivational change that I noticed in this person. When he decided to throw his code in a metric tool, he also started thinking about how to write his code better. how to architect his solution, and taking care about dependencies, death code, etc.

So, my conclusion is that when people see how good or bad his code actually is (in this case based on numeric metrics and graphics), they feel more motivated to do it better. Your quality doesn't live in the ether, you can actually see it! By the way, I must say that NDepend is a great tool, that I can fully recommend.