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Your response suggests you misunderstand the point I was making. I completely agree with you that there are certain niches which require extreme precision for s

by epr 6y ago

Your response suggests you misunderstand the point I was making. I completely agree with you that there are certain niches which require extreme precision for safety purposes like that which is being discussed in the article as well as your medical device example. What irritated me about the article is that it was comparing these niche fields which have completely different requirements and incentive structures to the software industry in general as if that was somehow a reasonable thing to do. Suggesting that the software field in general is somehow juvenile while failing to consider the vastly different incentive structures that exist for developers, managers, etc. in most fields, which necessarily have a drastically higher tolerance for error, is patently ridiculous.

raisedbyninjas 6y ago
Eh, the article is in FastCompany. The target audience may not be familiar with common software development practices. They contrasted the shuttle group process with normal processes and pointed out its hefty price tag & why the government prioritizes quality over speed and cost. Aside from an interesting article on the space program and process improvement, it was also useful for Joe CEO that regularly complains that, let's see 1996... Windows 95 gets it's IRQs screwed up every time he adds a printer or sound card, etc. "I paid for this software, why doesn't it work?"
chrisfinazzo 6y ago
While I don't entirely 'pay for my shoes' developing software - mostly client side web stuff - it's a part of what I do and I can understand the frustration that other parts of the field seem to have when looking at situations like this. Namely, we're at a point where agile practices have become so common that nothing is ever 'done' and it is acceptable to ship something with errors, assuming it can and will be patched later. Both Mom & Dad started out as COBOL programmers on punchcards, and I've heard plenty of 'war stories' about how these kinds of situations were far less common because an error meant your program simply didn't run. Unlike say a web browser which will mostly spit back out whatever weird HTML and CSS you feed into it, errors and all. In consumer software, it's not, 'we follow orders or people die' but for people working on this, it probably feels that way if your stuff is used by enough people (iOS) or is critically important (medical billing). If it doesn't do what it says on the tin, people are incredibly unforgiving of even the smallest mistakes.

by epr 6y ago

raisedbyninjas 6y ago

Eh, the article is in FastCompany. The target audience may not be familiar with common software development practices. They contrasted the shuttle group process with normal processes and pointed out its hefty price tag & why the government prioritizes quality over speed and cost. Aside from an interesting article on the space program and process improvement, it was also useful for Joe CEO that regularly complains that, let's see 1996... Windows 95 gets it's IRQs screwed up every time he adds a printer or sound card, etc. "I paid for this software, why doesn't it work?"

chrisfinazzo 6y ago

While I don't entirely 'pay for my shoes' developing software - mostly client side web stuff - it's a part of what I do and I can understand the frustration that other parts of the field seem to have when looking at situations like this. Namely, we're at a point where agile practices have become so common that nothing is ever 'done' and it is acceptable to ship something with errors, assuming it can and will be patched later. Both Mom & Dad started out as COBOL programmers on punchcards, and I've heard plenty of 'war stories' about how these kinds of situations were far less common because an error meant your program simply didn't run. Unlike say a web browser which will mostly spit back out whatever weird HTML and CSS you feed into it, errors and all. In consumer software, it's not, 'we follow orders or people die' but for people working on this, it probably feels that way if your stuff is used by enough people (iOS) or is critically important (medical billing). If it doesn't do what it says on the tin, people are incredibly unforgiving of even the smallest mistakes.