Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You are never taught how to build quality software

florianbellmann.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 500 posts

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#91

Post by duped »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #77
duped wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a university is not providing both they are failing everyone. Why? > A pure university education without considering is this degree useful in the real world is a disservice to education. I think this line of thinking is a much bigger disservice to higher education. It was very tiresome as an undergraduate to be surrounded by people that thought this way - and detrimental to everyone's education. "I'll never use…

I agree with you in principle, but it's very easy to have this attitude when the education isn't obscenely expensive. Which is why the "I'm never going to use this, what a waste of time" feeling among American undergrad students is so common. If you fix the affordability problem and bring it back to where is was in the mid 70s (inflation adjusted) I think things would be a lot better.

My point is that higher education isn't job training and doesn't pretend to be, and people who think it is or should are the ones that need education the most because they don't seem to get it.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#92

Post by sanderjd »

fidotron wrote: post #51
KeplerBoy wrote: post #18

> It will be necessary to deliver software without bugs in time. Seems like a pretty bad premise to start an article on quality software. If you believe you can ship bug free code, it's time to switch careers.

It is sad that people on here would believe this and that for whole platforms it is actually true, however, it absolutely is not universally true and the proof is all around us.

What proof is all around us?

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#93

Post by sanderjd »

chopsuey5540 wrote: post #38
KeplerBoy wrote: post #18

> It will be necessary to deliver software without bugs in time. Seems like a pretty bad premise to start an article on quality software. If you believe you can ship bug free code, it's time to switch careers.

You might be correct today but that’s a pretty sad state of affairs, don’t you think we can do better? Most other engineering domains can deliver projects without bugs, with various definitions of “bug” of course

Their stuff has bugs too.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#94

Post by alexchamberlain »

datadeft wrote: post #90
KeplerBoy wrote: post #18

> It will be necessary to deliver software without bugs in time. Seems like a pretty bad premise to start an article on quality software. If you believe you can ship bug free code, it's time to switch careers.

Spicy take on engineering. Why do we accept this for software when do not accept the same in other engineering domains?

Most engineering domains expect failure; the fail safes, checklists etc prevent it causing real damage.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#95

Post by Gud »

datadeft wrote: post #90
KeplerBoy wrote: post #18

> It will be necessary to deliver software without bugs in time. Seems like a pretty bad premise to start an article on quality software. If you believe you can ship bug free code, it's time to switch careers.

Spicy take on engineering. Why do we accept this for software when do not accept the same in other engineering domains?

Trust me when I say this: even "other" engineering domains have to do patches.

The difference is that software can be used before it is fully ready, and it makes sense to do so. No one can really use a 90% finished power plant, but software at 95% capacity is still usually "good enough"

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#96

Post by bee_rider »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #46
chopsuey5540 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be correct today but that’s a pretty sad state of affairs, don’t you think we can do better? Most other engineering domains can deliver projects without bugs, with various definitions of “bug” of course

I'm not sure about that. Which engineering domain do you have in mind? Maybe show-stopping bugs are somewhat unique to software engineering, but all somewhat-complex products are flawed to some extent imho. It might be an unergonomic handle on a frying pan, furniture that visibly warps under the slightest load (looking at ikea shelfing) or the lettering coming off the frequently used buttons on a coffee machine.

But there do exist shelves that don’t warp, when used within some reasonable bounds.

I’d also quibble about the buttons on the coffee machine. They might be properly designed, just subject to the normal wear-and-tear that is inevitable in the real world. This is not a defect, physical devices have finite lifespans.

As far as computers go… if we got to the point where the main thing that killed our programs was the hard drives falling apart and capacitors drying out, that would be quite impressive and I think everyone would be a little bit less critical of the field.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#97

Post by withinboredom »

ragnot wrote: post #86
withinboredom wrote: post #82

First, define quality software. I'll wait.

I'll take a stab. Quality software is software that is testable, able to adapt to new features and is architected to match the current organizational structure of the software team so that communication and dependencies don't have an impedance mismatch.

Now the hard questions:

- why is testable software higher quality? Does it add value to the software? I'd venture that untestable software has the same value (if not more) than testable software (due to time-to-market). You can write software that is 'obviously correct' and "high quality" at the same time, without any tests.

- Why does software that can adapt to new features increase the quality? If that is the case, we must argue that WordPress is extremely high-quality software. Or SAP.

- How does architecture influence quality? If that is the case, then there isn't any need for different architectural styles since there should be "one true style" that has the best quality software.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#98

Post by benwilson-512 »

datadeft wrote: post #90
KeplerBoy wrote: post #18

> It will be necessary to deliver software without bugs in time. Seems like a pretty bad premise to start an article on quality software. If you believe you can ship bug free code, it's time to switch careers.

Spicy take on engineering. Why do we accept this for software when do not accept the same in other engineering domains?

My wife works as an acoustical consultant at a global construction firm. The things you hear about factories, offices, and even hospitals is wild. Don’t get me wrong the construction world works very hard to avoid issues but I think we in software tend to hold other engineering disciplines up on a pedestal that doesn’t quite match the messiness of reality.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#99

Post by prosaic-hacker »

The whole article has a straw-man feel to it. It is not the senior developers responsibility to create a proper QA policy for the project. It is good that the lead should know how to implement good QA processes.

HOWEVER, the real culprit are the MANAGERS.

After 50+ years of skanky software development policy aimed at low balling cost its time to blame the right people. No amount of cajoling, "business/budget" speak manipulation is going to fix a fundamental flaw in how managers at that level are trained and behave.

We have stop being apologists for mistakes not of our making. If using QA techniques would increase the managers bonus then we will see it being used. If all it does is make better software then this post will be rewritten in 50 years and would still be relevant.

Re: You are never taught how to build quality software

#100

Post by Clubber »

duped wrote: post #91
sneed_chucker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in principle, but it's very easy to have this attitude when the education isn't obscenely expensive. Which is why the "I'm never going to use this, what a waste of time" feeling among American undergrad students is so common. If you fix the affordability problem and bring it back to where is was in the mid 70s (inflation adjusted) I think things would be a lot better.

My point is that higher education isn't job training and doesn't pretend to be, and people who think it is or should are the ones that need education the most because they don't seem to get it.

>My point is that higher education isn't job training and doesn't pretend to be, and people who think it is or should are the ones that need education the most because they don't seem to get it.

That was true 50 years ago, but employers turned it into job training. My father in law retired a well off businessman with a History degree from Yale he got in the 50s. You know what a History degree from Yale qualifies you for today? Teaching History and maybe writing some books. The degree didn't change and Yale didn't change.

Post reply on HN