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From: jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)
Subject: Re: No accident that programs have bugs  (was Re: Coders Aren't Carpenters)
In-Reply-To: jfreedm@netaxs.com's message of Thu, 08 Aug 1996 01:51:57 GMT
Message-ID: <JSA.96Aug9172816@alexandria>
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Organization: Organon Motives, Inc.
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Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 21:28:16 GMT
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In article <4ubhb8$iv4@netaxs.com> jfreedm@netaxs.com (Jay Freedman) writes:

> Brad Clawsie <brad@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >Customers have been hoodwinked into accepting shoddy software
> >because the industry has a collective implicit agreement
> >that bugs are fine. While a warranty for software may not be
> >practical, there should at least be some way to communicate to 
> >the consumer how reliable the development from a vendor is.
> >Some have suggested a quality ranking analogous to the CMM
> >model. Certainly market forces have not weeded out poor quality 
> >software. Flash and marketing wins, not good code.
> 
> Good luck on that one. BillG sez: While you're busy earning your Gold
> Star of Perfection, I'll have sold millions of copies of my
> good-enough programs. <g>

I think both points are sad but true (customers accept shoddy software
and BG and many others laugh all the way to the bank).  This is really
the sort of position that the US big 3 automakers were in before the
Japanese cleaned their clock with higher quality and lower prices.
Since most software doesn't even have the quality of a Yugo, it does
seem interesting that customers just accept it.  Maybe there just isn't
enough good software from which the customers can choose.

/Jon

-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
1 Williston Road, Suite 4
Belmont, MA 02178

617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com

