Measuring goodness may not be critical, but knowing what you call good is critical.
What if the members of a team respectively believe the most important thing is tight code with the fewest lines, OO purity, usability, small memory footprint, extensibility,
Java performance, platform portability, and fast database access? Which property will the end product have? None!
McConnell's Rapid Development book sites some studies that indicate developers can write to a handful of such goals, but when you get too many they start to conflict and the result has no focus.
What if the team gets together and agrees on a vision before they start? I'm betting they can focus on the top four or six values and make them shine through on the final product.
[ April 29, 2003: Message edited by: Stan James ]