Why is software so rubbish?

[WKnight]

My wife can't get iTunes to download and play, after hours of trying (and she's a GP so she's not completely stupid).

My mum has a digital camera but normally, not always interestingly enough, fails to print out the photos, and I am insensed by popups asking me if I want to archive this or download that, or update the other.

Why is software so bad?

You should know, you write it, or are involved in writing it.

Let me know why you think software is so variable, ranging from unusable, to error prone to simply too annoying to bother with. What are we doing wrong, and what can we do right next time?

Funny and amusing comments (with elements of reality) might just be published on the CUK front page tomorrow.

Cheers

[Paddy]

"My wife can't get iTunes to download and play, after hours of trying (and she's a GP so she's not completely stupid)."

Tell her to give her PC an aspirin, if its not better by Friday then call again.



My mum has a digital camera but normally, not always interestingly enough, fails to print out the photos, and I am insensed by popups asking me if I want to archive this or download that, or update the other.

Both need more memory.

Why is software so bad?

Because it's cheap.


Cheers

[Ardesco]

Why is software so bad?

You should know, you write it, or are involved in writing it.

Well the problem is that it is not all written by highly skilled contracotrs, it is just fixed and finished off by highly skilled contractors. Once the permie lot have got thier claws into it you KNOW it is going to be riddled with bugs, there is only so much a contractor can do.....

[zathras]

My wife can't get iTunes to download and play, after hours of trying (and she's a GP so she's not completely stupid).

My mum has a digital camera but normally, not always interestingly enough, fails to print out the photos, and I am insensed by popups asking me if I want to archive this or download that, or update the other.

Why is software so bad?

You should know, you write it, or are involved in writing it.

Let me know why you think software is so variable, ranging from unusable, to error prone to simply too annoying to bother with. What are we doing wrong, and what can we do right next time?

Funny and amusing comments (with elements of reality) might just be published on the CUK front page tomorrow.

Cheers

Because somewhere along the line use of it involves a human. The capacity of humans to take some carefully crafted, well written piece of software and so completetly mess it up belies the idea that there is any intelligent life on this planet

Either that or some software mogul that looks like Jonathan Price puts difficulties in the way to justify a lifetime of upgrades.

[AtW]

The capacity of humans to take some carefully crafted, well written piece of software and so completetly mess it up belies the idea that there is any intelligent life on this planet

It is not a well written piece of software if the target audience can mess it up.

Software business (when it works) is a very profitable enterprise, since there is no regulation such profits come from shobby programming and there are pretty much no good incentives to invest more money into better practices and testing. Heck, testing (or QA even) if often deemed as barrier rather than something that actually benefits the end users.

The complexity is raising faster than many programmers can handle it too - way too many visual aids available these days (and by that I don't mean just "test please delete" thread), people forgot how to write assembly and how stuff actually works.

Just ordered 256 MB more for my laptop (512 MB in total it will be), because WinXP SP 2 mostly swaps, and it takes forever to do anything major. I remember the time when 10 MB hard drive was considered fking huge, and now I bought 256 MB of RAM without thinking twice about it.

I think I need to lie down.

[errorista]

My wife can't get iTunes to download and play, after hours of trying (and she's a GP so she's not completely stupid).

Why is software so bad?

Cheers

Some software is bad because the PSL is 'JobJock' filtered due to low rates, s3 membership etc.

[swamp]

I think you'll find most software developers here write web applications, typically for big system integration projects.

There is not much work around writing shrink-wrap type software, IME.

[sasguru]

Very few software developers have user interface skills

Next ...

[MrsGoof]

If it worked perfectly there would be a lot more unemployed techies

It's a bit like, why do lightbulbs not last as long as they could ?

[hyperD]

The reason why most software fails is there's often a significant underestimation of the potential stupidity of the user.

Most developers forget that stupidity, like hydrogen, is one of the basic building blocks of the Universe.