From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e4b2dce209393666 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "John Duncan" Subject: Re: Business Week (12/6/99 issue) article on Software Quality Date: 1999/12/02 Message-ID: <8261sr$enu$1@usenet01.srv.cis.pitt.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 555798415 References: X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Organization: University of Pittsburgh X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-12-02T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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