Thursday, July 14, 2011

Why is software so full of errors?

Software.  Why is so much of it so buggy? 

There are several reasons.  One of them is that some software companies don’t always follow the rules of good software development.  Another is that some of these companies also don’t always follow the rules of ethical software development.  Yes, believe it or not, ethical behavior is essential to the development of good software. 

The primary professional organization for computer science is the Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM.  They have developed a code of ethics that is quite good.  To read it, go to http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics.

Or, for a much more entertaining description, go to the following address:


and read the story of The Case of the Killer Robot.  This consists of 9 fictional newspaper articles, plus an introductory article introducing the cast of characters, which I recommend reading.  It illustrates quite well what can go wrong in a software project.  I think you will find it very entertaining!

No comments:

Post a Comment