You are never taught how to build quality software
florianbellmann.com
You are never taught how to build quality software
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Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#2Is there any human activity where quality is an attribute successfully taught? In my experience, being able to produce something of quality is gained only through practice, practice, practice.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#3you cannot be taught what nobody knows how to do
or maybe, them who know how to do this are just unable to spread this knowledge... something about how they think their private secret codes are the source of their wealth
when in fact, it's merely the scheme by which they mantain an advantageous capacity to extract energy from them seeking to learn how to build quality software
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#4you cannot be taught what nobody knows how to do or maybe, them who know how to do this are just unable to spread this knowledge... something about how they think their private secret codes are the source of their wealth when in fact, it's merely the scheme by which they mantain an advantageous capacity to extract energy from them seeking to learn how to build quality software
This is what I came here for.
There's an obvious comprehensibility complexity to code to anyone who has spent almost any time what so ever trying to make something happen in software. However, we've got zero academics or theory around it.
Just 'best practices' (ie a thing other people are known to do so if things go wrong we can deflect blame).
And code smells (ie the code makes your tummy feel bad. yay objective measures).
And dogma (ie "only ONE return point per function" or "TDD or criminal neglect charges").
Sure, please do something for QA because it'll be better than nothing. But we're probably a few decades of waiting for actual theoretical underpinnings that will actually allow us to make objective tradeoffs and measurements.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#5Is there any human activity where quality is an attribute successfully taught? In my experience, being able to produce something of quality is gained only through practice, practice, practice.
Good teaching largely consists of setting the learner up in situations where they can practice effectively. To pick just one example many people are taught to improve the quality of their writing. This largely consists of giving guidance on what writing to attempt and (more importantly) guidance how to reflect on the quality of the writing you've just done so you can improve.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#6you cannot be taught what nobody knows how to do or maybe, them who know how to do this are just unable to spread this knowledge... something about how they think their private secret codes are the source of their wealth when in fact, it's merely the scheme by which they mantain an advantageous capacity to extract energy from them seeking to learn how to build quality software
This is what I came here for. There's an obvious comprehensibility complexity to code to anyone who has spent almost any time what so ever trying to make something happen in software. However, we've got zero academics or theory around it. Just 'best practices' (ie a thing other people are known to do so if things go wrong we can deflect blame). And code smells (ie the code makes your tummy feel bad. yay objective mea…
You forgot the dogma of only one entry point per function, back from the day when you could do both.
(One exit point is a pet peeve of mine since it often makes the code a lot harder to read and think about vs exit asap)
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#7I was actually thought how to build quality software (which is not limited to "having no bugs") in college, but I do not have the time or resources to apply this knowledge consistently in a corporate setting because of the pressure to deliver.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#8you cannot be taught what nobody knows how to do or maybe, them who know how to do this are just unable to spread this knowledge... something about how they think their private secret codes are the source of their wealth when in fact, it's merely the scheme by which they mantain an advantageous capacity to extract energy from them seeking to learn how to build quality software
This is what I came here for. There's an obvious comprehensibility complexity to code to anyone who has spent almost any time what so ever trying to make something happen in software. However, we've got zero academics or theory around it. Just 'best practices' (ie a thing other people are known to do so if things go wrong we can deflect blame). And code smells (ie the code makes your tummy feel bad. yay objective mea…
There is plenty of academics on it, as real engineers, those that studied Software Engineering or Informatics Engineering, instead of fake engineering titles from bootcamps, should be aware.
Usually available as optional lectures during the degree, or later as Msc and PhD subjects.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#9Is there any human activity where quality is an attribute successfully taught? In my experience, being able to produce something of quality is gained only through practice, practice, practice.
> Is there any human activity where quality is an attribute successfully taught?
Every industrial practice.
On the other hand, the title just means that programming is not an industrial practice. What should be obvious to anybody that looked, but some people insist on not seeing it.
Re: You are never taught how to build quality software
#10> 'If we don't do it now, development efforts (and therefore also costs) will be up 15% in 4 months.'
Yeah you won't get to a point where you'll have a valid-enough metric to make this point.
I was at a startup once. The two founders said "don't write unit tests". I wasn't going to argue with them. I understood what they really meant. We've been too slow, we need to ship as fast as possible. I shipped fast and I shipped quality (ie low defects and outages). I wrote unit tests. They didn't need to know. They just needed the outcome.
The elephant in the room in all of these conversations is that you walk into any software development shop and they just don't how to ship both fast and at quality. No matter how much an organization or team tries to revisit/refactor their dev process year-to-year, they're still shipping too slow and mediocre quality.
The truth is there isn't a magic formula. It's an individual craft that gets you there. It's a team sport. And the context is different enough everywhere you go, yeah, sure, some lightweight processes might abstract across the universe but very little bang for those bucks. Far beyond any other facet of things, you really just have to have a good team with experience and the right value-system/value-delivery-focused wisdom.