A Disturbing Theme
Can you guess what the theme is?
Maybe a few quotes will help:
- "I think all software is crap" - Steve Yegge
- "all my software is shitty" - Jeff Atwood
- "Software is Crap" - davmac
- "it's all a mess. Everyone sucks, equally and completely." - Scott Hanselman
Shall I go on?
It seems that everyone with an opinion and access to the internet is writing a post bemoaning the sad state of affairs in the world of software. They complain that every single system is utterly flawed at the deepest level and is at risk of crashing immediately if we dare even look at it the wrong way.
A Dose Of Reality
Now, don't get me wrong. There is software out there that is crap. I've even written some of it myself. I feel, however, that saying that all software is crap, or even that most software is crap is far from the truth.
In the process of creating this post I have already interacted (both directly and indirectly) with many different software systems. I used my operating system, its user interface, and various hardware drivers to launch and control a web browser. I used my browser to search for and visit many different websites. Each of these sites is running at least a web server, and most have additional scripting and database systems that work with it. All of that data passes through multiple systems in transit over the internet. Guess what? I have not encountered a single noticeable error up to this poin...NO CARRIER
...
To my readers old enough to get the above reference, I apologize for subjecting you to such a terrible joke. To those younger readers who are scratching their puzzled heads, I apologize for subjecting you to such a terrible joke that you did not even understand.
The fact of the matter is that most of us use a wide variety of software each and every day. Occasionally we encounter a problem that interrupts us or prevents us from accomplishing the task at hand. It may be the blue screen of death disrupting our career-defining presentation to a high-profile client, or our browser freezing halfway through a video of adorable cats diving head first into slightly-too-small boxes. The rest of the time, our software is quietly plodding along in the background and doing its job so well that we barely recognize it's doing anything at all.
It's like that old caretaker at your company that most people were aware of, but nobody could quite tell you what he did. He worked after hours when everyone else had gone home for the night. You might have run into him that time you returned to collect something you had left in your office. Maybe he vacuumed the hallway outside your door that time you stayed late to finish your essential project before the deadline. When he retired, everyone suddenly noticed how so many subtle niceties around the office had changed . When a system is working well, we may not even realize how much we take it for granted until it is gone.
Most software that gets noticed is like the annoying guy at the office who all the managers praise, but nobody wants to work with. He feels the need to add his input on everything and boasts about his "expertise". Trying to integrate his work with the rest of the team sets everyone back as they struggle to correct all of the problems he's caused. He manages to assign the blame to the soft-spoken fellow who sits by himself in the lunch room. When he manages to take credit for the eventual success of the project and parlay it into a promotion, everyone else on the team breaths a grudging sigh of relief that at least they don't need to deal with that guy anymore. This is the bad kind of getting noticed.
The fact of the matter is that for every annoying software system that stands out in the wrong way, there are dozens of others that you barely even notice. You don't notice them because they perform their designated task in silence while you're busy watching groan-inducing videos of skateboarders landing crotch first on the railing instead of stylishly grinding down it.
Professional Pride
I don't know about everyone else, but when I step back from a challenging project that required lots of hard work, time, and energy, I take a certain amount of pride in it. I enjoy seeing efficiency improve as people use my system to accomplish tasks that used to take an order of magnitude longer and require tedious, manual effort. I enjoy creating new software realities out of mere ideas and possibilities.
In any system large enough to be proud of, there will inevitably be some problems. When the bug reports roll in, I don't just throw in the towel and bemoan the fact that I've created yet another crappy system. No, I roll up my sleeves and get to work. I fire up my IDE and get started debugging my code and developing a fix. Depending on the operating environment and the nature of the bug, I can have a fix ready and deployed within hours - delivering a working solution to an eager customer who is (hopefully) pleased with such prompt resolution for their issue.
When I watch users struggle to control my software, I don't just sit back and whine about how I've created yet another clunky user interface. I go back to the drawing board and come up with new ideas on how to make the user interface easier and more intuitive. I perform usability tests with ordinary folks who are trying my software for the first time. I iterate over new designs until I find a solution that is user friendly and simple to understand.
What They Really Mean
Perhaps I'm taking these people too literally. If their point is to acknowledge that most software has bugs and it's nearly impossible to create "perfect" software, then they've got it right. Developing software is challenging. Just when you think you've achieved a new level of competence, a new bug rears its ugly head. The bug mocks you as you sweat and furrow your brow, struggling to figure out what has gone wrong. When you finally figure it out, panting and exasperated, you smack your forehead for overlooking such an obvious flaw.
The good news is that with each boneheaded bug you create and fix, there's actually a chance you might be able to avoid making the same mistake again in the future. If you keep your head down and work hard for many years, you may just learn to create software that isn't a flaming ball of garbage. That said, even the best of us have days when our brains are just not on their game and we write a fancy version of
while( 1 ) fork(); Don't lose faith. Keep going and continue striving to become a better developer. In time, you will gain a new level of competence and, at very least, you'll know enough not to let your guard down the next time you're feeling like a project was too easy.Cheers,
Joshua Ganes
Hi Joshua, I'm the author of one of the blogs you linked to ("Software is Crap"). In regards to my own blog, I think you've missed something, which is that the title (and the content) are *deliberately provocative*. I don't really think that *all* software is crap.
ReplyDeleteYes, the blog was born partly out of frustration - at having to deal with software that is flawed, often in quite fundamental and obvious ways - but that is not its reason for existence. It serves both as an outlet for me but also as a way to document these flaws, encourage them to be fixed, and to encourage other developers to put in that little bit of extra effort to avoid introducing the same kinds of errors and flaws into their own software. It also keeps a record of workarounds and fixes that I have discovered, which are occasionally useful to others.
Many of my blog entries correspond to a bug report, written by me, for the particular piece of software I'm complaining about. For example, http://davmac.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/rails-devs-we-dont-know-how-to-fix-it-therefore-its-not-a-bug/ and http://davmac.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/javas-nimbus-look-and-feel-and-custom-keymaps/ and http://davmac.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/mysql-and-c99-aliasing-rules-a-detective-story/ (the latter even included a fix, which took me several hours of my own time to determine).
I think perhaps you're guilty of pointing at my blog as evidence of something which it is not, without actually having read it. This doesn't really bother me (and heck, thanks for the link, I like traffic) but you should be more careful. The Jeff Atwood post you link is also worth reading - especially where he says "All the rest of us can do is keep making our software less shitty over time-- a process of continuous improvement."
That's the point. Not that when software is terrible we should "throw in the towel" as you put it, but rather the opposite - we should strive to make it better. And furthermore, we should try to understand *why it is bad* and how we can avoid making such mistakes in the future. That's what my blog is really about.
davmac, I must admit that I'm excited to see a direct reply from one of the authors I've linked in this post.
DeleteI am forced to acknowledge, first, that while I had read a few of your posts at the time of publication, I am by no means familiar with your entire collected works.
As I said in my article, "perhaps I'm taking these people too literally". I was looking for concrete examples of a theme I've heard repeated many times. Your title is clearly provocative, and I hope that you don't feel that I am calling you out too strongly on it.
Anyhow, thanks for your reply, and I encourage you to keep on writing and striving to make software better one bug report at a time.
Nicee blog thanks for posting
ReplyDelete