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the implicit assumption in all of these arguments is that it's more important to ship bug-free (or as close as you can get to bug-free) code than to ship quickl

the implicit assumption in all of these arguments is that it's more important to ship bug-free (or as close as you can get to bug-free) code than to ship quickly. In the real world, that is almost never the case. In fact, I can't think of a single situation in which it is ever the case.

clawrencewenham 17y ago
No that isn't the assumption. And when the article does discuss project deadlines it most certainly--and with cited references--talk about the trade-offs present in the real world. The article was written to discuss ways of reducing bugs independent of any other need. Furthermore, although you "can't think of a single situation in which it is ever the case", I myself actually picked one where a $4 billion machine with six lives at stake was an excellent example of when it DOES matter what the quality of the software is.
- danbmil99 17y ago
  ok then, in 99.999% of all applications I would claim that shooting for virtually bug-free code is a sure-fire prescription for business failure. BTW why did Nasa downgrade their redundancy to 2 systems in the Shuttle? I recall reading that during the lunar missions, they had 5 computers on board, all independent implementations of the same spec.
  - clawrencewenham 17y ago
    I understand your hyperbole, but the stress isn't necessary. The market will reveal where it wants quality and where it doesn't. Also, the Shuttle has always had 2 independently written systems, never five. There are five computers running software written to the same spec, but the physical redundancy wasn't the scope of the article.
kscaldef 17y ago
Wow, are we really that dominated by the startup culture here? You can't think of a single situation where correctness is more important than speed? I've spent most of my career working on systems handling money, at jobs where we actually bought and sold things. When there are bugs in the code, we lose real, quantifiable money. Sometimes being first-to-market with a product or feature is more valuable than the cost of bugs. Sometime a buggy feature makes more money than it loses. But, it's not a given, and it's naive to say that speed is more important than correctness in all (or even most) situations.

clawrencewenham 17y ago

No that isn't the assumption. And when the article does discuss project deadlines it most certainly--and with cited references--talk about the trade-offs present in the real world. The article was written to discuss ways of reducing bugs independent of any other need. Furthermore, although you "can't think of a single situation in which it is ever the case", I myself actually picked one where a $4 billion machine with six lives at stake was an excellent example of when it DOES matter what the quality of the software is.

danbmil99 17y ago
ok then, in 99.999% of all applications I would claim that shooting for virtually bug-free code is a sure-fire prescription for business failure. BTW why did Nasa downgrade their redundancy to 2 systems in the Shuttle? I recall reading that during the lunar missions, they had 5 computers on board, all independent implementations of the same spec.
- clawrencewenham 17y ago
  I understand your hyperbole, but the stress isn't necessary. The market will reveal where it wants quality and where it doesn't. Also, the Shuttle has always had 2 independently written systems, never five. There are five computers running software written to the same spec, but the physical redundancy wasn't the scope of the article.

kscaldef 17y ago

Wow, are we really that dominated by the startup culture here? You can't think of a single situation where correctness is more important than speed? I've spent most of my career working on systems handling money, at jobs where we actually bought and sold things. When there are bugs in the code, we lose real, quantifiable money. Sometimes being first-to-market with a product or feature is more valuable than the cost of bugs. Sometime a buggy feature makes more money than it loses. But, it's not a given, and it's naive to say that speed is more important than correctness in all (or even most) situations.