[nabilhat]

I'm lost on the broken windows analogy. Projects like software are constructed from these discrete elements; criminal activity is not. Bank robbery doesn't have a dependency on littering and jaywalking.

It makes more sense from the perspective of the real life outcomes of the law enforcement policy. By making an outsized response to trivial infractions a goal divorced from measurement against the desired result, finding reasons to harrass citizens became a performance target, and the policy is widely considered to be a failure in its intended outcomes and unintended consequences. Similarly, "Always Eschew Latency" as a task level target independent of desired project outcomes is likely to result in a product that performs ahead of schedule in every way except delivery date.

[hyperman1]

AFAIK the theory says littering does have an effect on bank robbery: If people see litter, you instill a mentality where caring for the neighbourhood is worthless. From that 'each for his' , 'dog eat dog' world view, the step to big crimes is smaller.

Now I have no idea if the theory is correct.

[webmaven]

> AFAIK the theory says littering does have an effect on bank robbery: If people see litter, you instill a mentality where caring for the neighbourhood is worthless. From that 'each for his' , 'dog eat dog' world view, the step to big crimes is smaller.

> Now I have no idea if the theory is correct.

The theory is correct, but the effect is smaller than proponents supposed (and seems to affect minor property crime more than violence). The poster child for the theory is the reduction in crime in NYC, but more recent analysis has shown that a larger driver was the elimination of lead from gasoline and paint.

[drewg123]

I remember a closed source project I worked one once where it was like that. There was a common core that people kind of just threw stuff over the fence into. Horrible, inconsistent style. Four different ways to do the same thing, all different, with different bugs, etc.