Software isn’t magical or unique. Quality applies the same here as it to does to any other product and software quality does not decline universally. It does so more in some segments than others.
What is unique about software is that quality declines directly proportional to attempts to manufacture industrial output. That means segments with more manual attention and less restrictions on participation tend to have higher quality than those segments taking the opposite approach. What’s most unique about that is trend towards lower quality following attempts at industrialization do not appear to result in faster output and may actually cost more to deliver. Attempts to understand why that is allowed to occur is a business and sociology problem, not a software problem.
jleyank•3d ago
I was thinking of various technical reasons, but realized it wasn’t technical. Software is buggy because there little penalty for being buggy. First-mover advantage and all that - get it out and patch if necessary.
laurentiurad•3d ago
could be technical in the sense that modern software doesn't handle pretty well unknown values. There's rarely a system that can produce certain output, it's always more like a probability of getting a certain output.
Take GPS for example, it only gives you an approximation of where you are, not the exact location. And this example can be extrapolated to basically almost any new tech.
austin-cheney•3d ago
What is unique about software is that quality declines directly proportional to attempts to manufacture industrial output. That means segments with more manual attention and less restrictions on participation tend to have higher quality than those segments taking the opposite approach. What’s most unique about that is trend towards lower quality following attempts at industrialization do not appear to result in faster output and may actually cost more to deliver. Attempts to understand why that is allowed to occur is a business and sociology problem, not a software problem.