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At 02:21 PM 4/26/00 -0500, Dave Whelan wrote:
>>For commercial software, the dilemma is that the client won't pay the price
>>needed to assure bug-free software.
>
>This seems to be the conventional wisdom but I think we need to question
>this assertion. If clients were offered a choice between two versions of the
>same software, one that worked properly and one that didn't, do you think
>they would choose the dysfunctional version, even at a substantial discount?
>No, the phenomenon of the acceptance of crappy software is a temporary one,
>I am sure. Eventually, software is going to lose its mystique and will have
>to comply with the bargaining standards to which everything else is subject.
===========================================================
Take note that I meant "bug-free" in the meaning used by the NASA space
shuttle programmers, as described in the article that initiated this thread.
As I'm sure you're aware, software bugs are classified according to their
severity, from show-stopper down to trivial annoyance.
No one argues that, in commercial products, bugs with high severity should
be corrected before release. In the context of the NASA program, however,
even trivial bugs would have to be fixed. But it's doubtful whether
commercial software buyers would pay the added price for products that are
guaranteed to be free of all bugs, no matter what their classification.
Certainly, owners of Mercedes automobiles (I'm one of them) expect far fewer
bugs than one might expect from a Yugo, and they're willing to pay the price
for a near flawless automobile. On the other hand, there are chuckleheads
who buy Beemers (whose natural habitat is the back of a flat-bed truck),
which goes to show that some people will pay a high price for anything that
has panache.
====================
| Nullius in Verba |
====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory -at- primenet -dot- com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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