Why Buggy Software Gets Shipped

astonishedelf writes to mention an article in the Guardian about the hard reality of why buggy code is sold on retail shelves. From the article: "The world's six billion people can be divided into two groups: group one, who know why every good software company ships products with known bugs; and group two, who don't. Those in group 1 tend to forget what life was like before our youthful optimism was spoiled by reality. Sometimes we encounter a person in group two, a new hire on the team or a customer, who is shocked that any software company would ship a product before every last bug is fixed. Every time Microsoft releases a version of Windows, stories are written about how the open bug count is a five-digit number. People in group two find that interesting. But if you are a software developer, you need to get into group one, where I am."

Member of Group 1.5 Confused

[PrescriptionWarning]

I propose we call a meeting with Groups 3-12 and 15-20 and see if we can get some kind of real analysis of what Groups 1 and 2 are really thinking.

No idea

[Unski]

..why buggy $oftware is $hipped. Can anyone help me with thi$?

Re:Welcome to Group One

[Threni]

> If you are in group two, than I post this for you.

> Theoretically, there is no language that is more or less prone to bugs than any > other language as understood in Turing Completeness. Without delving too much
> into this, it simply states that all languages emulate a Turing machine to some
> degree and therefore should be capable of everything a Turing machine is capable
> of (although I don't think this says anything about time/space efficiency).

If you understood Turing Completeness you'd be in group one.

Re:This is why

[PrescriptionWarning]

compiler error: $DIETY does not exist (except in weight-loss applications). Please use $DEITY.

Re:Welcome to Group One

[greg_barton]

Type in a sentence you're thinking about. Highlight part of it and bold it. Highlight a different part and hit escape seven times.

ON, I did that. Where's my damn easter egg?

Re: Vendor honesty

[Medievalist]

What I would like to see is some vendor honesty. How about making a list of known bugs available to your customer prior to purchase?

Good idea! You go first.

Re:MS Word Easter Egg

[cerberusss]

Open up Microsoft Word, type "=rand()" without the quotes and hit enter.

You bastard! When I typed this, my PC froze! But since it's also a server, it rebooted itself, mailed a Nigerian scammer my home address, started a DDOS on the local authorities and blew itself up, taking half of the data center along with it. When I came home, the Nigerian scammer had raped the dog and the cable guy from the ADSL company who had showed up at my house. When I told my wife, she replied that she didn't care since the left me this morning and took the house along.

So thanks to your FUCKING easter egg, I am divorced, broken, homeless and worst of all, WITHOUT AN INTERNET CONNECTION.

Thanks for nothing.

Re:Windows Software Shop :-)

[idontgno]

Failure is not an option

According to TFA, in their software shop failure isn't an option there either.

It's standard equipment.

Buh dum ching!

Re:MS Word Easter Egg

[hobbesx]

Think of it this way:
At least that Nigerian scammer doesn't have your address anymore...

Re:My experience

[Tim Browse]

most don't speak English very well, if at all, they don't ask questions when they don't understand (they just say "I'll get that done", and then either don't do it, or do it wrong), and they don't have experience with our system, and yet Management wants them to do x percentage of designs and development work...

Hang on...I'm just trying to spot the difference between them and about half the programmers I've ever worked with...

Re:Windows Software Shop :-)

[Tim Browse]

I've broken MS' MSRPC in a real bad way. There are no ifs ands or buts. I passed the information off to Microsoft instead of passing code to a full disclosure list. I've replicated this over and over, remotely and locally. I know for a fact because of the architecture of networking they will never be able to fix this.

And yet you can't work a 'preview' button? :)