Jason Proctor writes:
>>and having been in software development for a similar number of
years, my opinion is that commercial "priorities", scheduling
"decisions", and cost-cutting on various essential factors (such as
QA) have a far greater influence on the quality of software in
general than the IQ of the programmers concerned!<<
Yes, that stuff enters into it too. But from much of the software I've
bought, it seems clear that the programmer didn't even try running the code
he wrote just once to see if it worked. When a company has been in business
10 years, and is on revision umpteen of a particular piece of software, and
I receive it, and within minutes of first use I've found several major bugs,
I'd say there is something wrong with the programmer. I don't know how many
decades it should take to get it right. I've been under the same kinds of
pressures and yet stuff I've written, and we're talking tons of miserable
assembly code in there, has been so bug free, it's gone straight into coin
operated archade games. Nobody would tolerate those bombing out in the
middle of a level. It's simple. Write a line of code, or a routine, then
actually run it to be sure it works. If it doesn't work, either fix it or
remove it because it shouldn't be in there when the product ships. The
programmer should be his own beta tester, since people hired to be beta
testers are idiots just like the know-nothing sales people and poser
excutives.
Sorry for my attitude against software, but I'm fed up with every single
software application I own. NONE of it works correctly. Even Photoshop and
CoolEdit, the two I used to hold up as rare examples of things that worked
correctly, I've had too many problems with lately because of moronic bugs.
And for those software companies to take the attitude that I should continue
to pay for upgrades to fix their incompetent programming is unacceptable,
and in another industry would be illegal. Cars get recalled at the
company's expense when they don't work, I shouldn't have to pay endlessly
for bug fixes.
Yes, I'm a little bit in a bitchy mood. I think it's that time of the
month. Come to think of it, I have been feeling a bit girlish lately.
-Elhardt