On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 08:44:45AM -0400, Adam M. Dutko wrote:
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> > when ford sold the pinto with the 'exploding' gas tank, it just paid money
> > out to settle claims after many people were burned to death. although i
> > don't believe there is a precedent for it, possibly until now, many software
> > companies have been doing the same thing: selling crap products that in
> > essence 'explode' and hemorrhage valuable personal data to script kiddies,
> > etc.
> 
> 
> If we are to compare the nature of software to a physical product, we need
> to remember a few things...
> 
> 1) Proving software to be 100% correct is nearly impossible and in some
> cases completely impossible.  (think halting problem and state space
> explosion)

This is obviously not the intent.  The intent is to have software that
is reasonably crafted by software engineers.  Not some slapped together
turd with peanuts from different development teams.

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> 2) Physical products often have a calculable degradation curve whereas given
> consistent conditions, software does not "deteriorate" in a way that is
> easily quantifiable.  It does "degrade" under different conditions but see
> point #1 for another problem.

Not interesting and not even true.  Anyone who coded in the old world
with lets say threads, knew that going to a newer better faster machine
would always result in nice new racing bugs.  I won't get into why this
happened though.

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> 3) Even the best tested and mathematically proven software (think IBM space
> shuttle code) has bugs.  I forget the exact cost because I don't have the
> paper nearby but the per line cost of the shuttle code was astronomical!  If
> all software cost as much per line, no one would own a computer, except
> maybe governments and multi-billionaires.

Reasonable quality control is something people shouldn't hope for it
should be something people demand.  The reason why we have windows the
way it is today is that in the early days people didn't put their foot
down and said "ENOUGH".  The rest is history.

The reason why Apple is making such big strides with OSX is because they
are capitalizing on this general feeling.  OSX unlike windows isn't
naturally chaotic and Apple does a fine job pretending they are secure.
All in all a pretty smart marketing campaign that seems to be paying the
bills just fine.

Your car runs hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lines of code.
Does it crash all the time?  Microsoft spends more money on R&D than
NASA has to develop a rocket.  Are you sure that they should not have
been capable of any standard of quality?

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> There are other points but I'm sure you get the gist...  I'm glad I have a
> job, even if it means being a "high-priced" janitor.