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Software Quality In a Non-Software Company?
Nicros writes "I work for a publicly traded biotech company that happens to write software that is, in fact, kind of critical for the business — without it no data would ever be read from our instruments, and no analyses would be performed on that data. The problem is that as a 'biotech' company, we are not taking software quality seriously. We have no senior management with any history of commercial software development — our C level has really no clue whatsoever what software really is, much less what is going on in software development. All of our quality processes are related to manufacturing our system (not software), so we are constantly forced into ad-hoc development since there is no real process for our development. Repeated requests to hire someone with some real commercial software development experience have gone unanswered. I have been to the CEO directly one-on-one and although he agreed this was an issue, thanked me, and said he would look into it, that was the end of it. He has bigger things to worry about. So the question: Is this just a fact of life and I need to deal the best I can? What else can I do to get some attention on software quality in the company?"
...you just discovered that "quality" is subjective, congrats!
/.ers can understand:
It's really not that complicated; I'll paraphrase your two fundamental options in a way that most
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your cubicle and believe that your organization is on track. You take the red pill - dust of your resume or maybe start your own company.
If you find yourself losing sleep over the matter just ask yourself what's better, vi or emacs?
In order to show the bossesses
Yes, precious, we'll show those nassssty bossesses, yes, we'll shows them!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I agree. I am one of the people who will raise standards in the industry, after I get my doctorate in Software Engineering, a degree offered by only three universities in the US.
It's going to take a phenomenal amount of work to introduce real standards of software development though.
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t