Software is Too Buggy

Reader response to Those Damned Bugs! by Gene Callahan

Dear Dr. Dobb's,

While I agree that completely bug-free software is not a reasonable

expectation, I must disagree with the overall tone of this editorial.

It is one thing when a user deliberately accepts a

cost/timeliness/tradeoff on the presence of bugs. However, there is

much too much softwhere [sic] sold on a take it or leave it basis on the

consumer market where the frequency with which bugs crop up is much too

great to be accepted. This is exacerbated when the only way to get the

"fixes" for those bugs is to purchase the next release version of the

software, which contains a whole lot of probably useless "features"

which will in turn result in their own bugs. In my experience, most

"buggy" software shows evidence of having problems within a very short

time of installation. This suggests to me that adequate testing has not

taken place, or that problems have been deliberately ignored.

Based on my experience as both a system developer and a system

user, I find that most systems developers and programmers are very

ineffective when it comes to giving a program a real workout. It is

possible to develop complex programs which are largely bug-free, and it

doesn't have to take forever to reach that level, either. The other

reason for residual bugs is that, as noted above, marketing

considerations tend to lead to inclusion of huge number of new

"features", to the extent that it is often not possible to program and

test them all, particularly with their interactions, within the

time-frame defined for release.

Finally, I would point out that the assertion that most consumers are

using Windows 98 rather than NT as a considered price/reliability

tradeoff is absurd. Consumers buy their computers with the operating

system already installed. Almost all consumer-oriented computers have

Windows 98 installed as opposed to NT, and with good reason. NT is far

less user-friendly than Windows, which is a major consideration for the

average non-technical consumer. Also, there is a tremendous amount of

legacy software, not to mention current consumer-oriented software,

which is not compatible with NT. These provide significant reasons for

most consumers to prefer Windows 98 to NT, and they have nothing to do

with a price/performance tradeoff.

Sincerely,

Wesley Green
wes_green@phl.com

If you have comments, questions, or would like to contribute your own opinions, please contact us at editors@ddj.com

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