Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Yet Another Software Sucks Article

Posted by Hemos on from the it-all-sux0rs dept.

Narril Duskwalker writes "This one's from cNet.
`There's only one problem with software development these days, according to security analyst and author Gary McGraw: It isn't any good.'"

5 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong Problem. by Snowfox · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The problem is that consumers are willing to put up with crap because they buy marketing promises instead of software.

    The problem is that software vendors get away with using the laughable disclaimer that "this product isn't warranted for any suitability or purpose."

    I'm not even sure that the kind of disclaimer above should be legal without a more concise "NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK" stamped across the splash screen.

    If a company isn't willing to guarantee that a program fucking does something, why do they keep coming back to it? Because it's got a Madonna song and fluffy clouds in the commercial?

    If a company consistently provides unstable software, why do people run to upgrade instead of demanding more comprehensive patches for what they've already paid for? Is rushing toward flashy new features more important than stabilizing what you've already got?

    1. Re:Wrong Problem. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      In an ideal world software makers would have enough time to fix all bugs and ship only those features that are necessary for *you* to get your work done.

      Unfortunately this world doesn't allow for either of those things. Features that you don't need are needed by someone else, so they get put in. The company not only needs to compete with time to get the product out, but also with other companies who are also unwilling to give up any marketshare.

      It may be a pretty bad system, but release product now and release fixes later is good business.

    2. Re:Wrong Problem. by ameoba · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not quite... more like features that aren't needed keep getting added so that, instead of fixing the current version, the version number can be incremented and customers can be charged for upgrading to a newer version.

      We can blame Microsoft for this sick state of affairs. Until they came along, it was SOP for software licenses to essentially rent the software to the user, giving the author a stable revenue stream. Then Microsoft comes along, and realizes that to sell software for microcomputers, for a number of reasons (lack of hardware support, lack of user interest, non-commercial nature of licencees) a different licencing paradigm was called for, so they went with something more like books.

      The catch is, books are generally heavily proofread, but once they've been printed, your stuck. Normally this isn't so bad, since most books work just fine w/ a few typos. Not so with computer programs, a single typo going unnoticed durring testing could be a fatal flaw for software.

      Unfortunately, the book model provides no significant incentive to fix released software. Sure, the major showstopper bugs will get patched if they escape testing, but most of the minor glitches and irritations will be left in until the next release, when the product can again be sold for a profit.

      The real kicker is that the market for new systems is slowing, and with it the market for new softwar, and consumers are tiring of having to pay to upgrade to properly working software, but the last 20yr of paying once for software has lead them away from acceptance of subscription-style payments, putting software houses in quite a bind...

      So, if the consumer was able to accept a payment model that didn't reward the perpetual ignore-bugs/add-features/realease-new-version cycle, we might have non-bloated, functional software.

      Personally, I give it another 20yr, before the general populace has enough common sense about computers to force vendors to do the Right Thing.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
  2. Try DeMarco's take on it... by MeerCat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK, so the article is about coding for security, but it's worth considering Tom DeMarco's line in his excellent book Why Does Software Cost So Much ? where, he says, the correct answer is "Compared to what ??".

    Kicking those who manage complexity is always going to be easy - but until you can do better then you're not really helping.

    The book is well worth a read... if only to shut up all those metrics freaks...

    T

    --
    I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
  3. determining number of bugs... by dreamquick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "And the best way to determine how many problems are going to be in a piece of software is to count how many lines of code it has. The simple metric goes like this: More lines, more bugs."

    No the best method also factors in competancy of management, competancy of engineers, and the cost of failure.

    Lets take as example nuclear power plants than have operation control code behind them - how many lines of code do they have? I'd suggest 10's of millions.

    Why don't we see crashes of these systems widely reported?

    1) They are safety critical, if an error occurs anywhere the surrounding code must fail closed meaning that it should not result in false results being produced.

    2) If you screw up you can't just say "hey we'll fix it in the next version" - if you are lucky you'll simply get your day in court for negligence and you will no longer have a place in the safety critical market. If you are unlucky that still happens but you then get the ass sued off you by the relatives of anyone injured, maimed or killed by your software bug.

    You have to admit the second point really is one hell of an incentive not to screw up!