UPDATE: Mark Waite is quick to point out this article by Cem Kaner on Metrics Dysfunction, which predates Joel by years. The style of the two articles is very different; Joel uses a little bit of logic, a little bit of generalization, some common sense and emotion to make his point, where Dr. Kaner wrote a legal brief.
Of course, Dr. Kaner is a lawyer. 🙂
The great thing about the article (which I have printed off to explore in depth) is that it is comprehensive. Perhaps when the issues comes up again, I can find a way to politely ask “Have you read the Kaner paper on the subject?” Of course, he has published others.
This brings up an interesting question: So far, I’ve been listing interesting resources here as I find them. It would be neat to have some sort of categorization scheme to make them available quickly; something like Brett Pettichord’s Software Testing Hotlist.