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

Re:this article is...

[baldass_newbie]

You forgot:
e) all of the above.

Fred Brooks Is Wrong. There is a Silver Bullet!

[Louis Savain]

Software Is Bad Precisely Because Experts Like Brooks Teach that There Is No Silver Bullet

Software is bad because we are doing it wrong. We are doing it wrong because our so-called experts tell us that there is no silver bullet to the problem of unreliability. So everybody has given up on finding a solution. And now they want to bring in the lawyers and even more clueless experts. It won't work.

The brains of humans and animals are the existence proof that there is a silver bullet. Complexity wise, there is nothing in the universe more robust and reliable than the brain. In fact, the more complex the brain gets (as it learns), the more reliable it becomes. By contrast, the reliability of software gets worse as it gets more complex. Why is that?

The primary reason is that software is based on algorithms (threads) whereas the brain is a parallel, signal-based system. The reliability of the brain comes from the strict enforcement of precise signal timing: neurons always fire at the right time, under the right temporal conditions. With software, it is virtually impossible to guarantee the timing of various processes, which leads to program decisions happening at the wrong time.

The secondary reason for bad software has to do with connection types. In the brain, signal pathways are not connected willy nilly. Connections are made according to their types. We should do the same with software. All message connectors should have message types, and all connectors should be either male or female to ensure robust connectivity.

The Solution

We must imitate nature. We must forever stop basing computer programming on the algorithm and we must stop using algorithmic languages. Software should be more like hardware with parallel modules and their input and output connections. One of the reasons that electronic circuits are so much more reliable than software is that timing problems are immediately nipped at the bud due to the inherent parallelism of hardware. The circuit simply will not work if timing is wrong.

We can solve the software reliability crisis. We can create tools that automate over 90% of the software development process. Damn the Experts!