Comments on: Would You Trust Your Life To Your Code? http://www.basilv.com/psd/blog/2009/would-you-trust-your-life-to-your-code Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:57:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Basil Vandegriend http://www.basilv.com/psd/blog/2009/would-you-trust-your-life-to-your-code/comment-page-1#comment-101313 Basil Vandegriend Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:15:16 +0000 http://www.basilv.com/psd/?p=445#comment-101313 @Daramarak, you are absolutely correct that I ignored the role of the organization / management in providing the appropriate support. This article was targeted solely at developers taking responsibility for the quality of the code they produce. I have seen many cases when given sufficient time developers were still not able to produce high-quality code. Management, of course, must provide sufficient time or must carefully define the desired trade-off in quality, which gets into the debate about "good enough" software. This topic can easily be another article or three, which is one reason I did not want to touch on it in this post. @Daramarak, you are absolutely correct that I ignored the role of the organization / management in providing the appropriate support. This article was targeted solely at developers taking responsibility for the quality of the code they produce. I have seen many cases when given sufficient time developers were still not able to produce high-quality code. Management, of course, must provide sufficient time or must carefully define the desired trade-off in quality, which gets into the debate about “good enough” software. This topic can easily be another article or three, which is one reason I did not want to touch on it in this post.

]]> By: Daramarak http://www.basilv.com/psd/blog/2009/would-you-trust-your-life-to-your-code/comment-page-1#comment-101297 Daramarak Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:57:41 +0000 http://www.basilv.com/psd/?p=445#comment-101297 But there is more to it than the developer. You might *want* to assert that the code is 100% ok, but when your employer constantly wants you to deliver yesterday, you have to choose between satisfying your employer or your conscience, where the latter might cost you your job. I think it is much more about challenging the industry rather than the developer. When the industry stops tolerating errors, the developer might start delivering. Until then, the developer produces what he is able to with the resources he has, or worst case, what he can get away with. But there is more to it than the developer. You might *want* to assert that the code is 100% ok, but when your employer constantly wants you to deliver yesterday, you have to choose between satisfying your employer or your conscience, where the latter might cost you your job.

I think it is much more about challenging the industry rather than the developer. When the industry stops tolerating errors, the developer might start delivering. Until then, the developer produces what he is able to with the resources he has, or worst case, what he can get away with.

]]> By: matthias http://www.basilv.com/psd/blog/2009/would-you-trust-your-life-to-your-code/comment-page-1#comment-100766 matthias Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:30:17 +0000 http://www.basilv.com/psd/?p=445#comment-100766 Simple answer: No. I'm sorry. Simple answer: No. I’m sorry.

]]> By: Michael Foukarakis http://www.basilv.com/psd/blog/2009/would-you-trust-your-life-to-your-code/comment-page-1#comment-100763 Michael Foukarakis Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:07:00 +0000 http://www.basilv.com/psd/?p=445#comment-100763 I don't even trust my PC to my code, unless absolutely necessary. The great tragedy with software engineering is that we are taught that failures aren't critical - if your program segfaults, hey, just load it in a debugger and kludge until it works.. I don’t even trust my PC to my code, unless absolutely necessary. The great tragedy with software engineering is that we are taught that failures aren’t critical – if your program segfaults, hey, just load it in a debugger and kludge until it works..

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