What’s wrong with 90% of software written today?
I am not a programmer but I do know that, just like any other profession, there are good programmers and there are bad programmers. Writing software must not be an easy task or else multi-billion dollar companies like Microsoft would have written a browser that is secure, reliable and bug-free and Apple wouldn’t have to deal with 69 security holes in Mac OS X in less than 3 months. I just read an article about what’s wrong with the software written today. Perhaps the software developers are in a better position than me to to comment on the author’s take on this subject.
Here are a few excerpts from an article written by Shayne Nelson called What’s wrong with 90% of software written today?:
In the early seventies, industry studies revealed that eighty-five percent of all software development efforts went into just one area: maintenance. You can put that figure another way: programmers spend six to seven times as much fixing and modifying software as they do designing and building it.
Since most programmers instinctively (and justifiably) hate maintenance, that means that we are looking at a profession where the practitioners spend most of their day doing something they dislike. What a sad observation, and what a sad profession.
Things are always changing in a company, and therefore the company’s software is going to require changes, lots of them. This is inevitable. The question remains: why does the average company have to spend six-sevenths of its effort and programming manpower and time on fixing stuff rather than building it?
Asking that key question makes the issue (and the right answer) far more obvious. The answer is, BAD ORIGINAL DESIGN.
That’s right. Most software on earth is written with virtually no features incorporated to make debugging and maintenance much easier.
You can read the entire article here.
I always find it interesting when there are articles written about software developers that have really nothing to do with software developers. For example, the first excerpt states that software developers spend six to seven times as much time fixing and modifying software as they do designing it. That is probably a relatively accurate figure. What they don’t take into consideration is that most software developers aren’t involved in the design and build process. Yes, that’s right. You have team leaders, project managers, architects, etc. all involved in the design process – if there even is one. I recently had a colleague that was given a set of specs on a napkin her manager drew up at lunch and said “How long will it take you to build this?”
I agree with the article in the answer is really BAD ORIGINAL DESIGN. Unfortunately or fortunately, I’m not totally sure, most software developers have no say until the design hits their desk and their manager asks the comical question of “How long?”