Re: Larkin, Power BASIC cannot be THAT good:

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:31:38 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:58:39 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

But in my experience, the worst software is the most expensive.

Selective memory. There is good expensive software too. It tends to
exist in niche markets where high development costs have to be spread
across a small number of units.

Writing bad software is expensive. Bad hardware, too.

James Arthur

Yes. And management should be able to force software quality, but
usually can't.

Big company management often pay only lip service to software quality -
it is all about maximising their bonuses which usually means minimum
time to market and maximum immediate sales. Turnover in the sales staff
at software development companies means they are seldom around when the
impossible promises they made to the customer have to be delivered.

Management know full well when the first version ships that is it
riddled with bugs. XL2007 is a good recent example. You can always issue
updates that ameliorate the problems later. But a *new* version is it.
Once customers have it you can persuade other people to upgrade by
making the new file format incompatible with previous versions.


There's another interesting graph: X axis is how hard (or expensive)
it is to change a product in the field, and Y axis is bug density.

The curve dives down. Serious hardware and software designs that are
hard to update (like hard asics, auto engine control computers, or the
stuff inside flat-screen TVs, or military bear) are debugged pretty
hard before being shipped. Mediun things (fpga's, prodcuts that are
easily upgraded with a flash stick) are in-between, Stuff that gets
weekly updates over the web are often horrible.

I see this in my own work: hardware designs are checked exhaustively,
and we go out for a batch of expensive multilayer boards (we dom't
prototype!) and they are usually right. Assembly programming, I'm
pretty careful because the assemble-install-test loop is tedious.
On-screen programming is pretty much type and ignite and see what
happens.



I think the cumulative updates to XL2007 (original boxed version) now
top 1GB. After all everyone that matters has broadband these days.

The big difference now is that nothing physically has to ship.


Yes, and that makes people care less about bugs. And when a product is
so complex that each bug fix spins off more bugs...

John

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: XPs ugly Start button
    ... >>pirates will no longer be able to get updates. ... you definitely should switch to Linux. ... >doesn't sell new versions to fix bugs, ... there is no explanation for win98. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: A9 Home
    ... The whole OS is in beta and has been for rather too long. ... Updates have been available to people who reported bugs. ... Bugs will only get fixed if people report them. ...
    (comp.sys.acorn.hardware)
  • Re: Cannot save Word 08 document in .doc format
    ... addresses some of the bugs in this area, so make sure you have applied it. ... installed the latest updates. ... John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
  • Re: I love IP Tables....
    ... has time to get all the bugs out. ... the original ISOs and/or a full set of fully updated ISOs for first time ... But I normally install from the k12ltsp distribution which comes a bit later and is rebuilt with current updates plus the ltsp and other add-on packages. ...
    (Fedora)
Loading