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
[email protected]
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