From: "John Duncan" <jddst19+@pitt.edu>
Subject: Re: Business Week (12/6/99 issue) article on Software Quality
Date: 1999/12/02
Date: 1999-12-02T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <8261sr$enu$1@usenet01.srv.cis.pitt.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: B46A7702.169C%houseofcards@surfree.com
I was surprised at the BS in the article about how "rapid innovation" is
responsible for defects. This is a line we've been hearing from makers of
banal, overdone software for decades. Microsoft constantly tries to make us
agree that their software is so innovative that we simply needed it out the
door so fast that they couldn't spend the time to design it. In reality,
there are many older Microsoft products I would prefer to use than the new
versions, but they are now unsupported. Strangely, these products had the
"simplicity" that Microsoft says they're struggling to achieve by
amalgamating and bloating all of their code. Word 4.0 for the Mac is one of
my favorite examples.
But it is not until the lawsuit that these vendors seem to care about
software quality. Quality software is truly not that hard to produce, but
like any other product, you have to build the quality into it, and not
expect to repair it as you go. We have plenty of programming languages now
that make software quality easier to produce, such as Ada and ML, and we
have plenty of methodologies, such as Cleanroom and Extreme Programming,
that fit different cultures and product requirements to help assure quality.
But instead of outrage, home users have been tortured so much that they are
complacent, and they accept the fact that they have no voice. Large
businesses will lose their voice as well, if we allow UCITA to be adopted by
the states. Write a letter to your Governor and State Legislatures. Tell
them that you are a software developer but, as a human being, you do not
want to protect software houses in this manner. Do this before the option
is taken away from you.
-John
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-12-02 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 44+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-12-01 0:00 Business Week (12/6/99 issue) article on Software Quality Michael P. Card
1999-12-01 0:00 ` ld
1999-12-01 0:00 ` Michael P. Card
1999-12-02 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
1999-12-01 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
1999-12-01 0:00 ` Michael P. Card
1999-12-07 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Greg Martin
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Roger Racine
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Ray Blaak
1999-12-11 0:00 ` Geoff Bull
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Roger Racine
1999-12-11 0:00 ` Geoff Bull
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Jerry Maple
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-14 0:00 ` P.S> Norby
1999-12-11 0:00 ` Jeffrey L Straszheim
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
1999-12-08 0:00 ` jim_snead
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
1999-12-09 0:00 ` John English
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
1999-12-08 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-12-09 0:00 ` Georg Bauhaus
1999-12-10 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
1999-12-02 0:00 ` John Duncan [this message]
1999-12-12 0:00 ` Ronald Caudill
1999-12-13 0:00 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
1999-12-13 0:00 ` John Duncan
1999-12-13 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm
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