> Sounds like you are still stuck in the rut that "The purpose of > commercial companies should be to produce high quality > software"; when in fact their purpose is to maximise investors > return on investment (which may or may not involve the production > of quality software).
I agree, the purpose of any commercial company is to make money for its shareholders. However, I admit that I still have some of that idealism left in me - but not nearly as much as most of my colleagues. Why do I have some of that idealism left? Because, at least in the case of mathematical software, the barrier to entry is huge: it takes ~100 person-years to develop a halfway decent piece of mathematical software. So 'competition' is thin, essentially restricted to existing players only. And while 100 person-years is possible to find, especially for operating systems, browsers, etc, it is much harder to find 100 person-years from people who combined mathematicians and computer scientists. [The reason to go into this is that I am sure that there are lots of other market niches with similar forces at work]. So customers only have restricted choice, they pick the least-bad choice. And because of strong lock-in effects, once a choice is made, it sticks for years (for most people 10+ years). The question becomes: other than through good will, how do quality improvements happen in such an environment? How can customers 'force' quality improvements? > I lay a large chunk of the blame at the feet of CS educators who > would clearly fail an introductory course in business administration. > Perhaps I was wrong to suggest that software developers should > be jailed. Jailing a few university lecturers for teaching nonsense > might be a more efficient long term solution. But this is true in many disciplines, not just CS. However this is why I joined a 'software engineering' department, in a Faculty of Engineering, with an eye towards getting my PEng. After which, if I were to certify that some software does what it is supposed to do, and it does not, I am liable. I could be fine, lose my PEng status, or be sued. I view this as a good thing. I hope that eventually, through changes in law, certain software (like certain buildings, electronic products, chemical plants, etc) will need certification be a licensed engineer, and will not be allowed to be used/sold/etc otherwise. Jacques ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
