Too Much Tech Makes End Users Blink 241
There's a strange, somewhat funny story in The Washington Post today about how technology is probably going to keep outstripping people's ability to deal with it for many decades to come. It's a long piece, but please bear with it to the end; that's where Jaron Lanier (who some credit with inventing the phrase "virtual reality"), whimsically suggests that, in exchange for being granted U.S. copyright protection, commercial software publishers should have to pay users $1 every time their product screws up. "Instead of hunting down people who smoke pot," Lanier says, "they'd be hunting down people who sell business software that crashes. They'd owe people a buck or go to jail. That's what Washington should be doing."
MOD THAT POST UP! (Score:2)
Re:Amendment (Score:1)
I think Spider Robinson said it best about programming a VCR (I don't remember the exact phrasing)
Not only are people unable to set their watch, twice, and then pick a TV channel, they seem to be proud of it!
...and setting the clock is even easier. It's just like... SETTING A CLOCK! I don't see what the problem is.
He's right you know (Score:1)
The plane was well under control and test pilots were entirely comfortable with its flight envelope- then, some flights training airline pilots turned sour, with inexperienced pilots allowing too much yaw to develop, causing either emergencies or in one case a full-scale crash with fatalities to the flight crew onboard during the training flight.
Boeing risked being legally put on the spot and took responsibility for redesigning the rudder, giving more yaw authority and making the dangerous situation less easy for an inexperienced pilot to get into. Boeing covered the costs of this itself, and a good thing too.
I don't see many software vendors even attempting to be as trustworthy. The software company version of this would be changing the trainee pilots' contracts to say "And if the trainee crashes our expensive aircraft, his estate has to pay for the broken plane! Plus we keep his car."
*spit*
Re:He's right you know (Score:1)
Again- the rudder got the redesign. There are times when the bean counters and lawyers SHOULD NOT win. That was one of them. In the software industry the bean counters and lawyers always win...
Re:Yep - Fair (Score:2)
More importantly, while it's possible to engineer software to much greater tolerance, it's simply not cost-effective to do so. The teams that code for the space shuttle, for example, write code that's about as bug free as mortal man can hope for. If you employed them to write your web browser, however, you'd have to get $100 from every web user for every new version just to break even. The time between sucessive browser generations would skyrocket-- we'd probably still be using Netscape 2. And forget about support for new features in a timely manner.
All in all, I'd much rather have a free browser today that does a pretty good job of rendering most any page and crashes periodically than a browser that never crashes but was stuck using 6-year-old technology.
Of course, I'd make the opposite trade off for the software that operates the jet I fly in!
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:1)
Re:Better than an episode of Ducktales! (Score:1)
Yep - Fair (Score:3)
Look at the flight control software for military aircraft and spacecraft. In the Apollo days the number of bugs in the Lunar Module software could be counted on one hand and the astronauts knew what they were and the work arounds.
How many F-16s, F-22s, B-1Bs, F-117s, Airbuses, etc have been lost to software issues?
The only ones I know of were the two Saab Grippin and the second F-22A prototype that had landing software issues...that have been fixed. Has the software on Galileo crashed yet since it was launched in 1989? Nope.
Bugless software can be written, it's just that engineers and marketing don't care enough for the end user to make something that doesn't crash.
Re:its the manual (Score:1)
That's the problem - the "average" user wants products engineered for someone who knows nothing, and is unwilling to educate oneself. The techies are willing to educate themselves to use things, and most (not all, but most) don't expect users to know everything, but at least to be functionally literate, so they can read directions.
The situation here isn't as opposite as it seems.
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Sucky implementation tax (Score:1)
tax cigarettes
tax SUCKY IMPLEMENTATIONS OF GOOD IDEAS!
Re:Only two sides to this story? (Score:2)
Maybe I was a little obsessive/compulsive. .
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
I don't buy VCRs for their clocks. If the clock sucks, but the VCR is great, then I just won't use the clock.
I thought it was Jaron... (Score:3)
Re:Only two sides to this story? (Score:2)
I'll buy this "oh, it's not US that makes things suck" argument when nerds agree on whether to use KDE or GNOME.
Please, spare me. Nerds and engineers are just as much to blame as anybody. To use the KDE/GNOME scism as an example, KDE creates an application environment where programmer can share code and rapidly develop applications that can interact (copy-paste functionality, etc. Basically, duplicate the 1984 Macintosh Toolbox, but anyway...)
However, KDE uses Qt. Qt is "evil" because it's not Free. God forbid we spend our effort on convincing TrollTech to "free" Qt -- we start another goddamn widget set with GNOME.
So, while *nix hackers are busily wanking themselves over software licenses and how the bits move in ways that are only interesting to other nerds (a la CORBA), Palm created and fed a market and Microsoft developed the world's best web browser.
Puhleeze -- as much as I love and identify with engineers, don't feed me this sad story. Expand your mind by studying some of the great designers, learn about user interfaces, absorb a little business (so you'll understand where your PHB is coming from) and make the product great yourself -- or stop bitching.
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
Partially. It's also a function of how software is developed. The process by which a car (or a toaster, or an airplane) is designed, built and assembled is 50 or more years mature. Software (as we know it today, with high-level languages and cheap, ubiquitous hardware) is barely out of it's teens.
It hasn't been until recently that people could sit down and say "Okay, C sucks, but it's the best we've got, so we standardize on C. For scripting, we use Python. We assume Intel processors and we'll use Linux as the base. From this, build me a software factory" and be able to deliver.
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
Software development can be done like an analog factory. Not all of it, sure -- there is still a need for the lone artist, but certain problems are solvable this way.
At least, I hope so .. otherwise, we're stuck with this ad hockery that we do now...
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Hmm, ok, this confuses me. Not only are a lot of the posters complaining that the power outages make it worthless resetting the clock (power outages? I've had one in the last 18 months) but I thought all videos these days set their own clocks? Certainly the three video players I've bought in the last 5 years have (two have been gifts, all three still work).
Or is that just in the UK?
~Cederic
Re:Yep - Fair (Score:2)
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Re:Car analogy overused, incorrect. (Score:2)
Whenever someone climbed aboard an engine at night and needed some light, he only had to reach up and find by touch a cross-shaped valve handle (others valves handles are round) on the turret (that's an auxiliary steam feed from the boiler to power accessories) which fed steam to the turbogenerator, and voilà, he had light without much hassle...
Perhaps automotive designers oughta be forced to learn running a steam locomotive before being allowed to work...
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I don't understand (Score:2)
Er... I really thought the reason why less planes crash now was because of technology, not because of "Cockpit ease of use". I mean, they gotta be trained for the cockpit right? And I am not a pilot, but I think the older style airplane controls were simpler. I've seen the cockpit of a modern jet plane and it didn't look simple to me..
Maybe I missed the point, it's happened before.
Re:Only two sides to this story? (Score:2)
I agree with you up to a certain point. I think there are some engineers who will never "finish" a project unless they're given an end time. We've referred to this as the "Lego" problem -- when we were kids and built something with legos it never got "finished" -- there was ALWAYS some kind of further optimization/coolness/whatever changes that could be made. I emphasize COULD -- you can ALWAYS make something better. Even with the geek's favorite, Linux, Linus has to say "CODE FREEZE" in spite of the developers who know that there's further improvement that could be made.
Not to defend meddling marketers too much, but many of them do know that if they don't get some product into the market at a certain point in time it won't sell well enough to provide ROI. If it doesn't provide ROI, then nobody has a job.
Furthermore, we as users are USED to getting slipshod code the first few releases. Be it Windows, Linux, etc -- everybody knows you don't go production in an initial release, you wait until the first patch/service pack (at least).
Re:What about Open Source/Free Software (Score:2)
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Assuming that just because someone doesn't want to bother, that they can't is silly. Assuming that they should is, at best, rude. Why should someone be expected to use a clock that is that poorly designed? Of course, if you look at it it's annoying, but I chalk that up as one more black mark against the designers.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
The power didn't go off every couple of weeks until this year. I don't think I'll give up my health plan just to avoid that. I might get a UPS, but I don't think I would bother to put the VCR on it. That would be silly. Personally, I'd rather just file it away in a closet, but others have other opinions, of course.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
It might fix the problems that I know about, at a cost, but I wouldn't know what the new problems would be. One of the problems with the upgrade treadmill is that it's expensive. The other one is that one is continually encountering new problems. I'd prefer to limit that to the computers that I deal with. It's hard to track a lot of different areas in detail (actually, it's impossible), and I'd rather pay attention to what I find important. This is what the techno-blink is about. (See caution below.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Easy Fix (Score:2)
- He placed a piece of black electricians tape over the clock on his VCR display.
This simple remedy is very fast, and has no brand requirements. It works on every VCR!--
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Car analogy overused, incorrect. (Score:2)
Then consider 18-wheelers - who among us understand how to shift them? Not many. I suppose you could liken them to big UNIX servers.
Then you have motorcycles. Not a lot of people really can drive those well either. A bit like PDA's.
As a last point, there are MANY times when I simply can't find where the headlight switch is in a strange car without some serious searching. Talk about bad UI! It's dark, how am I supposed to find the thing?
So given the million or so things more that computers can do for us than cars, software is looking pretty good next to the pitiful state of all things that drive!
Real cause of Seattle Quake unveiled! (Score:2)
Oh... Is that what Gates was doing at that demo in Seattle last month. Gee.. guess WindowsXP really WILL take gaming to the next level
Yes, but changing environments is still a B!TCH (Score:2)
I'll usually remember where the lights are, but the windshield wipers? Nah, if it starts raining I usually need to think to find them. The radio, HAH. I've seen more makes of radio, then I have computers (okay, it feels like it though). What do I do? I usually spend at least five minutes when I get into the rental and try to figure out where eveything is THIS time. Usually helps a little, but not much, and that still doesn't keep me from hitting the high beams when I signal a left turn.
Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler. (Score:2)
You honestly think that the engineers should have added 4 buttons just to set the time of day? Perhaps another 6 for the year, month and day? Maybe three other sets of displays and buttons for different timed recordings? The menu selection style is simple, versatile, and doesn't require extra buttons for every extra feature.
I think the problem here is more one of poor documentation than poor design.
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Maturity is not the problem. (Score:2)
Consumers have the bad habit of assuming novelty means progress when they have to encourage progress through intelligent selection.
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The article.. (Score:2)
Suppose you have two makes of car: One is completely and totally unsafe - any impact will cause it to violently explode; the other is completely and totally safe - it doesn't matter how hard you hit something, no damage would result whatsoever.
Now, if you were forced to drive both of these cars for a year, which one would you drive in the safer manner?
as soon as cars have exterior airbags as well as interior, or some kind of force fields or something, then look out, 'cause it's bumper car time and I intend to be a bumping mofo
I see we already have your answer - and it's the same as everyone else's.
So you do believe it, you just don't want to.
Re:$1 Fines (Score:2)
Re:Sort of off topic (Score:2)
Sounds like "Crash". The problem is a bit more general, with safety features becoming instead performance benefits.
The ideal car from this POV would be a very safe one which felt highly dangerous.
This article is somewhat similiar in that it forces penalties for bad products. Unfortunately, I think it will take something like what is being proposed to make companies realize that stable software is important.
This article is somewhat similiar in that it forces penalties for bad products.
Problem is that since software is licenced it tends to fall into loopholes in laws covering goods and services.
Re:increased software efficiency by... (Score:2)
It might be interesting to find out what proportion of these "features" are actually "customer driven". And what proportion are "styling" and about making "this year' model".
Re:increased software efficiency by... (Score:2)
Also if they refused they'd end up minus a lot of money and told by a judge they still had to fix the car.
Cockpit UI (Score:2)
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
The 12:00 problem is a simple matter of proper human interface design. Take the typical VCR for example.
... and so on. that was a couple of paragraphs from the "preparing to set the time" section. There are a couple more pages on actually setting the time, either automatically semiautomatically or manually.
I pulled those from a random manufacturer and a random vcr model's manual which is available as a PDF:
http://aviator.jvcservice.com/books/model.asp?Mod
Now, how about something like this for a replacement:
[Hour +] [Min +]
1 2 : 0 0
[Hour -] [Min -]
The [] symbols indicate a button here. (credit for this layout goes to Jeff Raskin from his book "The Humane Interface." an excellent read.)
You don't even NEED instructions for that.
Industrial espionage, definitely (Score:2)
I'm a contractor. I've had something like 50 to 60 clients in the last 9.75 years, on jobs ranging from one day to 8 mos. I consider it "anthropological research."
Maybe I have worked for your company!
Only two sides to this story? (Score:5)
Why on earth does this article pit "engineers" against "people"?
Where do they get off making no mention of the managers who refuse to pay for real QA? Who micromanage their designers? Who insist "make it blue"?
Why is there no mention of designers who seem never to have heard the adage "form follows function"?
I confess more than a little irritation that "engineers" are taking the rap for their PHBs, for the airheads in marketting who care more about releasing a product at the right moment than whether that product is ready for prime time, for designers who care more that there's a cohesive colorscheme than that it presents the user with a compelling metaphor.
It has never been my experience that it was the techs on a project who wanted to get the project done faster rather than better. 99 times out of 100, management has to pry the techs' fingers from the code ("No, really, code freezes NOW.") Similarly, it's not the techs saying "gee, why waste the money on real QA specialists."
In my experience, coders have immense respect for usability (even those who don't know how to make it themselves) and robustness, but are never taken seriously when they say "no, that's not how we should be doing it; it would be better if...". To blame them as a class for the failures in robustness and usability of their code is salt in the wound.
Re:UI (Score:5)
I keep hearing about how we need all this human factors research to make computers usable, that interfaces must be "intuitive" and, most of all, standardized.
Then I get in my car.
Almost every adult in the USA can operate a car with little difficulty. Yet the interface is not intuitive - press one pedal to make it go, another to make it stop? Turn a vertical wheel to change horizontal direction?
And the interface is not standardized - a car may have from two to five different foot controls (at least gas and brake, maybe also clutch, parking brake, and high-beam switch), the shifter for an automatic transmission can be on the steering column or the floor, the headlight switch can be on the directional signal switch or on the dash...
So how is it that most everyone can drive? (Well, can operate the vechicle. People have many driving problems that have nothing to do with operating the vehicle.)
Partly it's because everyone is familiar with the basics through cultural osmosis - we grow up riding in cars, we see them operated on TV and in movies. And partly we expect and accept that a certain amount of training is needed; few people balk at the idea that a few dozen hours of classroom instruction and supervised driving are a requirement for basic competence.
Why do we expect computer software to be different?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Someone has already written about this (Score:2)
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
They especially don't need to tape it.
They also don't speak in absolutes.
Re:Yep - Fair (Score:2)
Yeah, and they had a major one show up during the landing, that the astronauts didn't know the workaround to. Too many interrupts or something like that...
Re:Disclaimer (Score:2)
Can you say "Microsoft"? Somehow, I can't see Corporate America dropping MS for that.
Re:Even Apollo had user errors (Score:2)
And user error shouldn't cause a problem like that!
JAFR. (Score:3)
First of all, the blinking "12:00" is the result of a poor user interface -- buttons with hidden functions that aren't immediately obvious, like using the channel up/down buttons to set the hour.
So the writer misses the point on that one.
But what really annoys me is the way the writer trots out the usual suspects: Stewart Brand, Jaron Lanier, Esther Dyson (Negroponte, Joy, and Kurzweil must have been off skiing or something), and adds Through the Looking Glass to show how confoozing this technology stuff is!
I feel like I've read this same piece a hundred times in the last ten years. Okay, let's take it as a given that there's always going to be a gap between humanity and technology, leaving some people frustrated and confused. And move on.
As for that blinking VCR [xensei.com], buy a clock.
Just Another Fucking Rant.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Re:increased software efficiency by... (Score:2)
The difference between your average car and your average piece of software is that if the car does break in the first couple of years the car maker will fix it for you. Microsoft on the other hand, will tell you to live with it or kindly sell you a service pack or SE version of the broken software that makes things worse rather than better.
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Re:increased software efficiency by... (Score:2)
However, I don't think that that excuses the extremely poor reliability of the average personal computer (especially the onces that the "average guy" gets at Best Buy). There has to be a reason why software companies never offer a warranty on their product. Most people hold car dealers in pretty damn low regard, but have respect for companies like Microsoft. Why is that? You stand a much better chance of having a car dealer stand behind their product than a software maker.
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Darwinism and software (Score:3)
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Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
My only argument here is that what you have described as a good interface, while good for some, is not so good for others. Given that, how does one design a "good" interface for a general purpose item. On the flipside of the coin (and to return to the orignal topic), how could one design an interface for something more targeted like software, but where the end user could range from beginner to expert, and has totally different needs from the software without having to make some sacrifices?
This is not meant as an attack, but just a counterpoint, and I would love it if you responded.
Sort of off topic (Score:4)
This article is somewhat similiar in that it forces penalties for bad products. Unfortunately, I think it will take something like what is being proposed to make companies realize that stable software is important.
Jason
What about Open Source/Free Software (Score:4)
I'll stop writing free software the day a law like that passes...
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
I don't mean to sound like a totally haphazard approach is best. I do believe in standards and requirements (etc...), but they have diminishing returns: For example: if you spend longer in the design phase, you might save some time in the integration and debugging phases, but it's returns diminish radically as you increase the time spent on design (or requirements). Youthful programmers want to spend eternity in the requirements, design, and coding phase... and have a distaste for integration and debugging. The tools provided for software design analysis are a joke. They create more problems than they solve, and are only cost effective when you really have to show due diligence with software that might kill someone (I know: I've both written and used such software)
In the analog world, a thorough design is measurable, in software, it becomes a black hole.
>"...and software engineers are not the be-all-end-all of the engineering world."
I never said, nor believe, otherwise.
>"And if you're curious as to what I consider as the most complex thing ever developed by Man, it's language."
Isn't it curious how there can be such a wide range of speech that's still intelligible by even the most ignorant human? That's the great thing about the analog world: tolerances.
Any attempt we make at computer based speech recognition (AI or neural nets or even patter matching) becomes bogged down in miles of code when we even begin to tolerate variations. While the increase in code seemingly makes software tolerant, it simultaneously increases the complexity and probability of indirect failure.
When we truly understand analog logic, we'll probably find speech recognition very complex, but not as complex as we made it out to be with digital logic.
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
You need to understand that increasing the volume of software and it's complexity may logically cover the assumed problem space more thoroughly, BUT, it simultaneously increases the probability of indirect program failure. Furthermore, you may think you understand the problem space thoroughly, but you can't guarantee it (how often do we see an exactly accurate computation of the wrong problem, i.e. the Hubble Space Telescope mirror was ground within exacting tolerances of the wrong shape).
If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:3)
I first heard this user mantra in `82 with my first programming job -- and they said that was an old adage.
The problem isn't programmers lack of responsiveness to users, as has been suggested for the last 40 years. If that were true, it would have been solved by now.
The true problem is the inhearent complexity of software, where any useful integrated program enters the realm of chaos, and exhibits behavior "as if at random".
It's digital nature makes it more susceptible. While you can plumb a toilet within wide tolerances, software must be exact. Furthermore, a broken toilet doesn't take the city's sewer system down with it.
It's ease of modification makes it even more susceptible. A problem in hardware will be there for years, we'll learn to work around it, and it may become the standard. But with software, the fix (and the next set of bugs) will come with the next upgrade or patch.
The fellows suggestion that "speech recognition will cure this" is another example of how requirements bloat, to solve "the problems of software usability", exacerbates the problem.
Some problems need to be blamed on the programmers and management: the Window's kernel hung around much too long. Microsoft kept adding mounds of complexity with small doses of functionality to keep the ever faster processors busy; it was no wonder you couldn't keep it up.
Open source has been the best solution so far. If it has a problem, the "open hood" policy allows your local mechanic can fix it, or determine what the original programmer wanted the user to do in the first place.
Re:Car analogy overused, incorrect. (Score:2)
She told him to stop and drove the rest of the way.
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Economy (Score:2)
On another note, it's definitely obvious that we are distributing more complicated products to the masses. The main issue then seems to be UI's , think about it, when you are marketing to the average person, some things have to be dumbed down. Not due to the low intelligence of any specific person, but as method of targetting the least (most) common denominator.
Amendment (Score:2)
I would like to change this to say, "For almost as long as the average American has been alive, stupid people have been driven nuts by the flashing "12:00" of their videocassette recorder's clock."
I have never had any problem setting any vcr's clock. Maybe I'm just a supra-genious, but somehow I doubt it. If I were, at least one of my plans to take over the world should have worked by now. But I digress. My point here is that I think this small change helps to better set the mood of the article, and get a little more insight into the perspective of the author.
Now then. Deliver me 1 mill - er - 100 billion dollars by sundown or I will destroy the city with my fiendishly clever but easily disabled destruction device. MWAHAHAHAHA!
Creature Feep (Score:2)
Is This Fair? (Score:3)
Is it really fair? You can't possibly say your software is 100 percent reliable. No software is. Not even Linux. That's why the Open Source method is so effective. It weeds out the bugs.
No matter what you do, there's always something that will cause software to crash. What happens if someone's CPU fan dies, and their OS has a kernel panic because of it? Does the software company owe money even though it's the CPU fan manufactuer's fault?
Most importantly, where do you draw the line and say, "This is a stupid user error, not a software error." And who makes that call? I certianly would think scandelous home users can't be trusted to do this, nor can big software companies. And what merits a successful recording of crashed software? Logs on a machine that can be altered by the owner? If they couldn't be altered, would you WANT software like that on your PC?
can't opt out? (Score:2)
I would disagree. It's quite easy to opt out:<br>
<b>Don't buy the technology that offends you.</b> Read consumer-reports types reviews to find out what products won't.<p>
Go ask the former-Soviets how government regulation of science and technology works. They had all the resources the U.S. did except a free market, but look whose technology is more advanced.<p>
And yes, there is the "advanced does not mean better" argument, but if that's what you believe why are you on a computer reading this? Buggy software and VCRs blinking 12:00 are by no means necessary for life, and many do without them.<p>
The thing about computers is that the people who make them think pouring hours of time into using one is <i>fun</i>. The market's response to this was Apple's "Computers for the rest of us" slogan. I'm not sure if they succeeded, though.
increased software efficiency by... (Score:4)
involving the government. riiiiiiight....
Seriously, as long as software companies emphasize release date and features over correctness and user testing, bugginess will be the norm. Financial penalties are warranted and effective for some industries (e.g. automotive, where bugs in the system cause fatalities), but unless the software you're making has life-or-death failure consequences it probably doesn't warrant that level of intervention (and nobody ever died becuase Windows crashed while they were playing Quake).
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News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
windows makes me rich (Score:2)
Imagine this: (Score:2)
Question:
So imagine - you host a party, 10 people come over, 7 of them drink alcohol, 4 of them really drink alcohol. The party is over, someone who really drunk alcohol starts his/her car and has an accident. Are you responsible?
Canadian court decided you are responsible (the family who is said to be responsible filed an appeal.)
I bet you don't see my point, by now I start doubting. But the point is - we all are looking for someone to blame for our problems. It is possible that your software user gets some kind of a problem using your software - the real problem may not the software itself but a combinations of things that lead to the [problem]. There is so much computer software that is designed to do so many things, and things don't go well (especially different software interacting with each other.) It is unfare to ask a software producer to think about every single usage of their software, about every single interaction that can happen between their package and all the other packages in the world. The real software testing happens when hundreds, thousands of people use it and report various bugs. Functionality today is more important than perfect software tomorrow (I don't even know why this is true)
Anyway, I don't think the software firms will like the government to do something silly like the proposed stuff.
Good luck
But, what *makes* software crash? (Score:4)
If windows changes how secret interface number 27 works, or one of thier public functions, in a future release of windows and that breaks my code, should I be out a buck?
If someone else releases a piece of software that crashes mine, who owes who a buck, and how would an end user know the difference?
Doesn't this just encourage computer software developers to make thier software fail as silently as possible, which software developers hate?
If you feel you've been ripped off, sue. Sue in small claims if you have to, and if you want revenge more than money, sue the president of the company specifically and drag him personally into it, possibly into the courtroom. We don't need new laws for this. We have too many unused or ignored laws as it is.
(Woah, 0.8 just finished compiling! I can get some work done now!)
We shoud know better (Score:2)
Because of one important difference: we (engineers) should know better.
The managers may be above the engineers on the org chart; but in practice, that is merely a rough abstraction. The guys in the trenches have enormous influence over how a project develops. Anyone who says the engineers' duty is to rotely carry out the designs and requirements handed to them is either naive or hopelessly jaded. A balanced organizaton includes engineering pushing for technical excellence, and demonstrating that it pays off. In fact, good management wants to trust engineers' judgement, because they have expertise that can't be found elsewhere in the company.
The upshot of this is that engineers do deserve the blunt of the blame for bad software, because we should know better, and we shouldn't allow it. Yes, there are times to compromise in order to get the product into a customers hands. But there are also times to take a stand. And even more important, we should find time on a regular basis to work on things that our managers didn't ask us to do, but will improve software quality. That's not going behind your boss's back, it's part of doing your job. A good manager will respect and appreciate that.
Re:We shoud know better (Score:2)
Nice post.
In related news .... (Score:2)
Re:Disclaimer (Score:2)
Re:We shoud know better (Score:2)
The company I first worked for has just installed SAP in 9 months without ANY serious issues. SAP are over the moon. Do you know how they managed it. Because the management assigned their best people to the job, only checked out the work in a general way (i.e. no distracting meetings), listened to the people doing the job and kept the politics bullshit where it belonged - in management meetings.
Why can't everywhere be like that? It was damn hard work, but I would love to work on a project like that where deadlines are tight and management realises that developers produce their best work at a computer, not being harassed in project meetings.
Why is this only obvious to us and not to all the management gurus so beloved of PHBs everywhere?
Re:MOD THAT POST UP! (Score:2)
How come noone complains that pianos don't have an intuitive user interface. They aren't much more expensive than computers.
I had ten years of lessons to learn how to play the piano and didn't feel I had to sue the maker because it wasn't obvious.
That said, at least the maker warranties a piano so if it doesn't perform as specified they fix it for free. [I had to have a string replaced that was incorrectly put in.] Pianos are also open, anyone can take them apart, fix them, copy the design and make it into a T-Shirt if they wish.
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
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Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
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What?? (Score:3)
Sounds like he came up with this idea when he was high as a kite...
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Re:Apple does it best (Score:2)
Microsoft pays up front... (Score:2)
Features vs bugs. (Score:2)
We've arghued this point over and over and over. We run in horror from the prospect of an AOL future.
Problem is that old stories like "The day the machine died" (or was it "stopped" ?) about a whole world that collapses because of the ultimate system crash seems more and more prescient. And the Marketroids will be selling the benefits of that system to us until it reaches that point.
A feature, not a bug, indeed.
but then we do have that problem of people's common misperceptions, in an increasingly illiterate world. The old "Do what I mean not what I say", and, "If what I want is really stupid, don't do it".
What will the AI machines of the future have to say about that?
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Either way, what use to actually spend time setting the clock until you may need to use it? I never set a clock like this until I have a reason to. Along this same line, I won't fiddle with the clock on my work phone or car stereo for daylight savings time. There are just too many clocks in life to get uptight about the ones that don't really matter.
...which reminds me, it's probably time to figure out how to sync the time on my LAN so that my computers all think it's the same time.
Re:Blinking 12:00 (Score:2)
Blinking 12:00 (Score:4)
Oh c'mon...does this mean everyone who manages to set their VCR clock is automatically a member of MENSA, and will be among the chosen few whisked off to another planet when humankind dooms itself?
The problem is, as always, just too damn many stupid people.
Why Industrial Strength? (Score:2)
But from a high volume perspective, there are is a lot of equipment that runs and runs without crashing. My television, VCR, telephone, hell, even my car all have bits of electronics and software in them, and they're all pretty damn stable.
The question should really be - show us something as customizable as a computer and see how often it has problems. Back to the car analogy - if you were constantly tweaking your car, adding and subtracting different pieces, you'd expect to have problems.
Not that I think that the software put out by certain organizations doesn't suck. There just almost is a tradeoff between that same customizability and stability...
Apple does it best (Score:2)
with their "Human Interface Guidelines" document. Call this a troll or flamebait or whatever, but the fact remains that Apple spends good money on making sure that their software is usable.
Usability testing is an important, and highly overlooked aspect of software design. Perhaps this wouldn't even be an issue if we allocated some of our development resources to this highly specialized skill.
Unfortunately, many programmers don't seem to care. I can't count on both hands how many times a programmer at another firm has told me something to the effect that they don't understand colors or graphics. This is entirely obvious when looking at the GUIs that these firms produce. A monkey who calls himself an HTML "designer" doesn't qualify as a usability expert either. There are actually people that are trained in this kind of work, though they are few and far between. Perhaps the real answer lies in colleges. If we teach 'em early on that a product stands a much greater chance for success with good usability, perhaps more students would be interested in the field.
Just my 2 cents.Uh huh (Score:2)
And I whimsically suggest that the plaintiff bar will institute a class-action suit for this very thing within the next few years. Did Word crash and take out your work? You're entitled to damages! Did Photoshop mangle your images? Sue!
Mark my words, this is coming.
Yes, but look at the bright side.. (Score:2)
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Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
This is utter bullshit. Airplanes are "inhearently complex" but Boeing doesn't put on into the air until they make sure it can fly for a VERY long time with as low maintaince as possible. I expect all software companies to STOP using it customers as beta testers, and actually test their software before they release it.
Why, why, why? (Score:2)
The nice thing about technology is that nobody expects you to know everything. The other nice thing about technology is that once your involved with a section of technology, it's easier to relate that to other areas.
The bad thing is that if your involved in technology, your expected to know everything about everything that plugs into a wall. It may be hard to believe but I don't know why the copier isn't working. Sheeshh.
Choose Your Poison (Score:3)
Computer literacy is an excuse for techies to say, 'I don't want to actually have to think this stuff through.' "
Maybe the answer -- gulp -- is Washington. Perhaps the only way to create plateaus is to mandate them.
Which is scarier? A class of peeps who are afraid of thinking their way through a problem or a gov't doing it for them? His whole argument boils down to those two lines. I'll agree when he says UI's in general are immature. Fine. But the biggest problem is immaturity. Computers as they exist today are in an immature state where they aren't 'obvious' but gov't is as able to grasp these concepts as well as Joe Trailer-Park Sixpack. A voting body as messed up as congress/senate trying to nail down what "good" is scares the living shit out of me.
"Me Ted"
Better than an episode of Ducktales! (Score:2)
$1 Fines (Score:2)
Disclaimer (Score:2)
There was a long time when Oracle paid any customer who found a previously unknown bug in their software a $10,000 "reward". While developing software, I stumbled across an undocumented bug that our DBA then tracked down, and he was awarded the $10K. We need more software companies like that.
Re:If builders built buildings as programmers... (Score:2)
My pet peeve with regards to all of this is all of the gurus who promise programming nirvana by following their easy software methods and procedures...Invariably their 'test cases' are very simple systems. Can somebody please point me to some software engineering methodolgy that has scads of successful test cases in real world situations? And very few to no failures? Please? Please?
Software is complex. The fact that software is built on other software (APIs, OSes, etc) because handling everything is too complex for one team makes things even worse. Other people's bugs become your bugs. Other people's future bugs (at the OS or driver level) become your bugs after your software is written. There are no guarantees. There is no silver bullet to fix this.
Personally, given the complexity of modern software (and the hardware underneath it, for that matter), I'm surprised anything ever works to the degree it does manage to work at. This goes for Windows as well as UNIX based systems.
Re:UI (Score:2)
Of course, the downside of this is that the problems people are having are much more complex in nature!
Re:UI (Score:2)
sigh... (Score:4)
I used to work at a print shop -- the kind that produces national magazines, like Time or Fortune. I've been in the pressroom, I've been in the bindery, and all those machines go down several times a day. When hundreds of distinct, interlinked processes are happening at once, the failure of one will often shut down the rest.
I'm sure this applies to factory floors of all kinds, not just the presses, and I might add that most of said equipment costs SIGNIFICANTLY more to purchase and operate.
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UI (Score:2)
Re:UI (Score:2)