Other people discuss software quality (spoiler: it sucks)
Quite a few people are noticing that our apps are a little bit more crap than they used to be.
I can’t believe how bad software has become. It is out of fucking control. (@robconery)
Dear engineers
It’s more complicated than you think it is,
Oh
Oh, please stop crying. (@cwodtke)
It isn’t just apps crashing more, although hardly an hour passes without a WebView causing an app to crash on my iPhone. Basic functionality is being compromised.
OS X’s “Open with” just says “Fetching…” forever. Happens all the time. The solution: paste this command into your terminal, grandma! (@garybernhardt)
If you don’t feel bad about software, I can’t imagine the world as you imagine it. In mine, grandma has to paste commands into her terminal. (@garybernhardt)
One hour of computer use: learn my CPU was at 100% for two weeks, Amazon tries to ship to @avdi, “Open with” breaks completely. Open with. (@garybernhardt)
Seriously, we should be embarrassed. We’ve remade the world in our image. Now “Open with” doesn’t work and there are NaNs everywhere. (@garybernhardt)
another branch on the regression tree as we fall our way toward the hard ground of an unmaintainable software stack that no one understands (@garybernhardt)
Software quality is, by any reasonable measure, deteriorating. Things crash more. Things break more. Things work less.
Although some find bright points in the middle of this mess.
what i love about this tremendous backslide in software quality: now EVERYBODY feels the way i have for the past 10 years. (@amyhoy)
used to be i ranted about software all by my lonesome off in a corner full of luddites (i’m no luddite!)… now “technologists” are joining me (@amyhoy)
The core of the problem is, as it is everywhere else, money. As in, software is a cost centre, not a profit centre.
as software gets driven to $0 in most areas (including all OSs now) I doubt quality will become a higher priority. (@ianlandsman)
software is the free stuff they throw in to get you to buy hardware. So ‘good enough’ is all it needs to be (@ianlandsman)
perhaps if real competition emerges on the software side. Seems like that would take some new paradigm (@ianlandsman)
Lack of money combined with a lack of understanding of how complex systems work (or don’t work) seems to have lead us to a pretty precarious place when it comes to software quality.
“A system represents someone’s solution to a problem. The system doesn’t solve the problem.” ~ John Gall (@flowchainsensei)
“Loose systems last longer and function better.” ~ John Gall (@flowchainsensei)
“A temporary patch will very likely be permanent.” ~ John Gall (@flowchainsensei)
Of course, it’ll all be fixed in the next version, right?
iOS 9 to focus on quality, fewer features. iOS 9 to totally change the way iPad works. Well, OK then.
— Paul Haddad (@tapbot_paul) May 22, 2015
I have seen the glorious future of the Internet of Things, and it is a 2 hour firmware update for the wi-fi light bulbs in my house. O_O
— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) June 24, 2014
Yesterday, someone objected that software always gets better. Today: “a maliciously crafted font file may lead to arbitrary code execution.” (@garybernhardt)
“Software keeps improving” and “software makes life better” are not inherent properties of the world; they’re beliefs that you can examine. (@garybernhardt)
Apple Watch has a code injection vulnerability via buffer overflow. It is 2015. Code injection via buffer overflow was known in 1972. (@garybernhardt)
So, does software keep getting better? Well, the most common class of security hole was understood in 1972. Now your watch has it. (@garybernhardt)
The inappropriateness and just absolute weirdness of suggestions that programmers make in response to technical problems blows my mind. (@garybernhardt)