🚀 go-pugleaf

charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu (Charles Geyer) writes:

>In article <1992Dec19.023609.26000@news2.cis.umn.edu> I wrote:

>  It is fair to say that no computer company puts quality first, ahead of
>  featurality.  Until they do, quality will remain abysmal.

>In article <bhayden.724865911@teal> bhayden@teal.csn.org (Bruce Hayden) replies:
>> Just take a software engineering course. We know how to test for bugs,
>> how to do software QC. We just don't do it. Often the company that is
>> shipping the premature software has a QC section. Almost as often
>> that QC group is at some level preempted by marketing. But how does
>> it look when I ask for that QC data when I sue you for defective
>> software. This is what is called a "smoking gun" by attorneys.

>Sounds to me like from a legal standpoint the best thing would be to replace
>fire the QC people so they won't generate any "smoking guns".

Well - you may be right. However, the lack of a QC group is in itself
an indication of a lack of due care. Needless to say though, this latter
is probably harder to prove in court.

>Things won't change until someone markets quality computer software and
>hardware and gives the customers a choice.  You can buy a Japanese car
>and tell Detroit to stuff it.  Why can't you buy a computer like that?

I would argue that it is the expectation level. I will admit that I will
often buy (and use) the feature rich program over the stable competitor.
However - I am running Windows, and not OS/2 precisely because I couldn't
get OS/2 to keep from crashing. It wasn't worth the effort, given that
Windows does everything that I want. Also note - I may not switch to
OS/2 when a stability release finally does happen. So it may starting
to happen.

>BTW this isn't an anti-American comment.  I just bought an American car
>(I'm giving Detroit one last chance).

Well, I have given up on Detroit. Especially when I had to drive them
as rentals. I can remember the dash board coming off into my lap in
an Escort with less than 5,000 miles on it. We tried the Chevy and the
Ford when we last bought a vehicle (last year), but quickly narrowed
it to either a Datsun (ok - Nissan) or a Toyota.

Bruce E. Hayden
(303) 758-8400
bhayden@csn.org