Why (Most) Software is so Bad

Rivard was one of several to point out that MSNBC says software sucks. My opinion is that in software fields where the monetary gap between market-leader and second-place is large, we should expect bad software. Good design, good execution, good debugging all take time, but users can't see under the hood -- and wherever information is scarce or not readily traded among consumers, the free market bogs down. (Note what the article says about McAfee VirusScan.) So companies that don't plan on releasing a crummy 1.0 and fixing it later go under. That's just the way some markets work; if you're a coder or engineer who doesn't like that, find yourself a job in a niche without that monetary gap. Anyway, the really stunning thing is that, of all the media outlets, MSNBC points out that just one of Microsoft's poor design decisions has cost consumers $8.75 billion, and wonders why nobody has sued. Update: 06/18 14:10 GMT by J : Readers point out the story is a reprint from Technology Review (one of the few good magazines I get -- but this issue hasn't arrived yet :).

Rivard continued his writeup with an interesting point of view, saying that while we all know software sucks, we just accept it:

"Even though 'plenty of reviewers, pundits, hackers and other outsiders' will point out problems, often intentionally left in the product, no one has brought a liability suit against the makers of the known-to-be-vitiated product -- because the software gestapo (the End User License Agreement) has been 'able to avoid product liability litigation partly because software licenses force customers into arbitration' of poorly designed pith.

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel, believe it or not, and it's Bill Gates. Microsoft suspended coding for two months to seminar on bugs and how to fix them. Gates told his employees he wanted to make 'reliable and secure' software Microsoft's 'highest priority.' If you don't buy Gates' ad-hocking promises of redemption there are other solutions, like creating a programming language that forces good code; going back to the days of intense peer-review, instead of relying on compilers; and intense planning, past the bungling paradigm of the bar napkin."

Comments

The joke's on MIT Technology Review

[ajp]

This article is out of the July/August MIT Technology Review. My copy of the magazine proves their point in an ironic fashion.

The zip code I live in covers two cities, let's call them Appleville (tiny village) and Apricotland (large, sprawling concrete wasteland.) I live in Apricotland which is asciibetically second (based on the third letter.) Note that the first two letters are the same. MIT TR's mailing system lists me as living in Appleville. Why would it assume that zip code 12345 is the smaller village instead of the sprawling metropolis?

Yup. Buggy software. I could--as anyone reading ./ probably could--isolate the bug in ten minutes given the source. Likely it assumes that either the first city is valid or that the likelihood of two cities beginning with the same two letters in the same zip code is too small to consider.

The joke's on you, MIT.

How software gets bad

[pointym5]

1. Smart (or dumb) guys form startup around good idea. Version 1.0 gets written in a frenzy of caffeine and beer, riddled with bugs because it has to be delivered before the money runs out.

2. Mistakes made in version 1 are sworn off as version 2 is designed. Version 2 is built by the swell of 2nd-generation coders, hired as fast as possible and sent to work unsupervised by the overworked 1st-generation engineers.

3. Version 2 is delivered with all the good ideas on the surface, but implemented by less-than-excellent coders.

4. Widespread adoption funds much additional hiring. Anything vaguely mammalian is hired to fix bugs and work on new features and new products. Most 1st-generation engineers leave with their money. Product design and development is run by people who don't know what they're doing.

an interesting article, but...

[AdamBa]

It's a good overview of current gripes about software, but the article is mish-moshing a lot of things together. For software, it talks about embedded control systems, operating systems, compilers, medical machines, and web servers. For what constitures a bug, it talks about bloated code, ugly code, inefficient code, badly designed code, buffer overflows, bad algorithm implementation, incorrect handling of badly entered data, and of course the ultimate in cataclysmic chaos -- an app that generates unnecessary Windows messages. For how to fix things, it mentions component-based design, exhaustive review of source code before compiling, better initial planning, better programming tools, highly-typed languages like C#, better measuring tools, and never deferring bugs. For the goals that should be aimed for, it talks about usability, reliability, cost effectiveness, and maintainability.

So that's all fine and dandy, but it's not like you can just take one from each column and have something that makes sense. For example, were bugs in an operating system due to inefficient code that would be fixed by component-based design with an eye towards cost effectiveness? Well, uhhh, maybe, I think.

It didn't help that so many of the people quoted had no idea what they were talking about, and the ones who did had their quotes taken so far out of context that they made no sense. It seems a lot of people who never worked at Microsoft know how Microsoft develops software. Oh well.

It would make more sense to talk about a particular class of software and bug and then discuss why it is there. E.g. why do Microsoft systems products have buffer overflows. Even then you would get a bunch of different answers.

- adam

P.S. Comment first posted by me on Techdirt.

Re:MSNBC

[thud2000]

The key to the article is the last section, which talks about remedying the bad software situation, describing massive class-action lawsuits as "a bad idea whose time has come." MS knows that it could live through a class-action suit of this type. Would your favorite open-source project survive being sued back into the stone age? I think this article is an attempt to get public opinion stirred up to the point that UCITA laws - which include things like mandated warranties on software products -seem like a reasonable solution, and thus make life more difficult for MS's competition.

The joke is probably on the Post Office

[analog_line]

Knowing a bit of how mass mailings work, specifically how you figure out who is where through zip codes, the actual city that gets printed on things mailed to you in that fasion is determined by checking the Post office database, usually through a program such as AccuZip.

Lots of times, the city the post office has you in isn't the city you actually live in, but it will get to you all the same, because the Post Office can't assign multiple municipalities to a single zip code. They probably picked the small town because it didn't have any other zip code, or whatever criteria they have. Don't blame the software for something that isn't it's fault. It's just doing a query based on the official database.

You forgot 5 and 6

[Art Tatum]

5. Fixing most of the problems requires fundamental architectural changes that would be expensive and would take two or three years (a la Mozilla). Being a for-profit corporation, you can't afford to wait that long or spend that much money.

6. Fixing even the shallow defects would break backwards compatibility and the customers all swear they will go to your competitors.

Merely a conflict of values

[Sloppy]

Popular software isn't reliable, because reliability isn't the highest value. Compatability with a legacy is (e.g. you want to run this application under MS Windows?). Or cheapness (e.g. Do you want to be billed 2 hours of my time (very little testing) or 6 hours (more testing)?). Or having lots of features (Would you like a flight simulator with that spreadsheet?). Or something else.

When reliability is important, you can have it. But it will cost you. Most people consider the cost to be too high. That's why more people run bleeding-edge Linux, Windows, or MacOS, than OpenBSD.

And there's nothing wrong with that. You just have to accept/enjoy the power/responsible that goes with the choice that you made, instead of whining that someone else should have chosen for you.

Irresponsible XP users whining about XP, ispartcularly pathetic. Yeah right, you didn't know what you were getting into. You never heard of this "Microsoft" company before, so you just assumed that they valued reliability over other considerations. Discovering that it was crap primarily intended to play video games and keep MCSEs' jobs secure, was like a cold knife in the back -- such unexpected treachery!

Out of touch with reality

[Futurepower(R)]

"This is one of the better comments on this thread."

To me, these comments seem utterly out of touch with reality. I find bugs and insufficiencies in open source software. But generally open source software impresses me as an attempt to do a good job.

In contrast, Microsoft software seems just sloppy. For example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has 18 unpatched security bugs (when this was written). These active security risks are different from the recent 15 that have already been fixed. This is sloppiness, not mistakes, and I don't find anything like it in the open source world.

When I have a problem with open source software, I find that I can get help. When I call Microsoft, I find that, usually, no one with whom I am allowed to talk knows any answers. Right now, for example, no one seems to know how to repair a new, Intel Motherboard, Windows XP installation that won't create a virtual memory paging file. It's buggy, and nothing can be done other than re-install the OS and all the applications.

If you find a big problem in open source software, chances are that you will communicate directly with the main authors. With Microsoft, I have not been able to get answers. This article says that the Psychic Friends Network is equally as good as Microsoft technical support: Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network The conclusion of the article seems reasonable considering my experience with Microsoft. Neither organization has useful answers, but The Psychic friends Network is more friendly and less expensive.

Re:Software's so bad...

[MagikSlinger]

Software's so bad because it's still handcrafted, and the interchangable parts don't. Cars sucked too when when they were done the same way. OSS isn't the solution. The solution is for Computer Engineering to someday become as rigorous as other areas of Engineering.

You're half right. OSS isn't THE solution, but is part of a larger class of solutions. The reason mechanical and other forms of engineering could evolve into reliable disciplines is the ability to freely and openly communicate between the practitioners. With an industry wide peer review, everyone can analyze someone else's work, share their insights with everyone and everyone can benefit because that new technique or design can be incorporated by others into their work.

Shortly after the WTC attack, the American Civil Engineers society put together a panel of engineers to analyze the failure, and provide a report to the entire civil engineering community. When was the last time any proprietary software company did that? In fact, we've seen how these companies use lawsuits to squelch any such activity.

Openess, peer review and the ability to freely share information, lessons and strategies is what sets the other engineering disciplines apart from software engineering.