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I think a common error is taking this view in isolation on each bug. Fact is, if you ship enough 'low probability' bugs in your product, your probabilities sti
by billti 3y ago
I think a common error is taking this view in isolation on each bug.
Fact is, if you ship enough 'low probability' bugs in your product, your probabilities still add up to a point where many customers are going to hit several of them.
I've used plenty of products that suffer from 'death by a thousands cuts'. Are the bugs I hit "ship blockers"? No. Do I hit enough of them that the product sucks and I don't want to use it? Absolutely.
- pixl97 3y agoSoftware is commonly built on non-fungible components and monopolies. Right, you don't want to use Microsoft Word, or SalesForce, or Apple vs Android, or X Whatever. It's highly unlikely you'll have a choice if you use it though.
- owlbite 3y agoVery much this, and low risk bugs compound at scale. If you're in a very large FANNG type company, and say you have 1000 components that each ship 1 bug each day that has a 0.1% chance of breaking something critical, that translates to a less than 50% chance you ship a working OS on any given day. And that may mean the entire company's productivity is impacted for the day depending on how broken it is.