>> I suspect that when I started programming, I spent 20% programming, 80% >debugging (which often included redesigning the application because I hadn't >understood the problem, or I'd not built a robust design to solve it). Now my >goal is 90/10, and sometimes I come close. Even still, the total development >time doesn't, in my experience, go down anywhere close to an order of >magnitude.
>
>I gather from this that you're lumping debugging in with testing? If so, that is not the standard way this is measured. Debugging is dev time.

Mike, you speak with authority on this issue!

I offered that more as an off-the-cuff measure of personal work. I don't have anything that I could offer in a more formal sense. So, as you say, that should be understood as combining debugging and testing.

I haven't read elsewhere other responses to this thread. Mike, I'm sure you have some insight on this -- at least how to conceptualize the issues involved.

Jay