> I do not think people remember how bad software was over a decade ago Or how good it was. Pro24 and then Cubase on the Atari ST ran for months without crash

> I do not think people remember how bad software was over a decade ago Or how good it was. Pro24 and then Cubase on the Atari ST ran for months without crashing. Desktop publishing on the Amiga (PageFactory? - I forget now) producing LaTeX/Postscript like output, faultlessly. Those were in 1993. Before that I used VLSI software I ran on a Sun 380 workstation and designed whole microprocessors on software that simply never crashed - even when it ran out of memory or was given 'impossible' routing tasks it auto-saved in a recoverable state - in 1989! There's always been the same spread of software quality. Some amazing stuff written by diligent, competent engineers who actually use and test their wares. Some absolute rubbish written by fly-by-night spivs and opportunists who want to make money fast. Sadly the latter gained the upper hand after about 2000. Mostly led by companies like Microsoft whose products are notoriously shite - a total disgrace to computing. They got away with it simply by pumping vast amounts of money in to marketing and perception management. They simply drowned out the competition, creating a normalised very low standard of software by sheer force and dominance. Two problems lie beneath this. Firstly, software quality metrics have never really matured. It's too complex a product a gauge. The author mentions functionality, usability, reliability and security as if they were orthogonal. But in reality they are not. For instance, security is mainly a quality issue relating to visibility and control and is inversely proportional to complexity. And aren't ease of installation, accessibility and ease of development also quality factors? Secondly, I don't think the average persons has much rational expectation around software quality. Again Microsoft and then Google proved that. Many people are pleased by eye-candy and UX fluff, or by the social aspects of software, but they disregard actual functionality. Ask random people whether software got better or worse this last decade and I think you'll get a lot of confusing, scattered responses,