Motivation of software professionals
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From: Brian on 13 Feb 2010 16:02 On Feb 13, 2:04 pm, Seebs <usenet-nos...(a)seebs.net> wrote: > On 2010-02-13, Keith Thompson <ks...(a)mib.org> wrote: > > > I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of > > particularly high quality. But I think that most free software > > that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does > > tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: > > good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software > > attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced > > in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary > > software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. > > > But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised > > if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). > > Sure. > > But there's one other huge amplifying effect: > > You can read the source so you *know* whether or not it's any good. That > helps a lot. I think its helpful to be able to read code generated by a compiler. I'm not talking about assembly although that is helpful, but higher-level code. In C++ due to a number of language features it's easy to misunderstand what you are reading. If you are having a problem and need to research the cause, reading the later output can help detect the problem. In my case, I have both open source code -- http://webEbenezer.net/build_integration.html -- and closed source code. The output from the closed source code is also open source. Brian Wood http://webEbenezer.net (651) 251-9384
From: Arved Sandstrom on 13 Feb 2010 16:03 Jerry Coffin wrote: > In article <hku5go$af0$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, > John.koy(a)example.com says... > > [ ... ] > >> Exactly. Engineering is about measurable outcomes, quantification. >> What's the equivalent of "this building can withstand a quake of >> magnitude 7.5 for 30 seconds" in software? Can any of us state "this >> software will stand all virus attacks for 12 months" or "this software >> will not crash for 2 years, and if it does your loss won't exceed 20% of >> all digital assets managed by it" ? > > Your analogy is fatally flawed, in quite a number of ways. > > First of all, a particular piece of software is only one component in > a much larger system of both hardware and software -- where the final > system is generally designed and assembled by a somebody who's not an > engineer at all. What you're asking for isn't like a warranty on a > building. It's more like asking a vendor of steel beams to warrant > that any possible building of any design will withstand earthquake X > as long as it includes this particular component. [ SNIP ] And to continue the analogy, what would be reasonable to ask for is that the steel beam vendor warrant his steel beams provided that they are properly used according to his specifications. We can actually do that for software components as well. AHS
From: Arved Sandstrom on 13 Feb 2010 16:09 Seebs wrote: > On 2010-02-13, Keith Thompson <kst-u(a)mib.org> wrote: >> I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of >> particularly high quality. But I think that most free software >> that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does >> tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: >> good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software >> attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced >> in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary >> software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. >> >> But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised >> if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). > > Sure. > > But there's one other huge amplifying effect: > > You can read the source so you *know* whether or not it's any good. That > helps a lot. The bad stuff tends to never go anywhere (see our spammer > from last fall with his Unix daemon utility), while the good stuff tends to > do quite well indeed (e.g., Rails). > > -s *In theory* you can read the source. However, not many professional developers actually have the time to assess open source code quality by doing code inspections. I myself tend to go with reviews, previous experience of software by the same people, experience of older versions of the same program, and the provided documentation. And I've used a number of programs for which the source was available where problems caused us to dive into the code. The code passed visual inspection, no problem...but it still had defects. AHS
From: Mike Schilling on 13 Feb 2010 16:22 Lew wrote: > There should be a much wider gap between the pay scale of the good > developer and that of the putz or newbie. ---- I do not think that words means what you think it means.
From: Seebs on 13 Feb 2010 16:18
On 2010-02-13, Arved Sandstrom <dcest61(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > *In theory* you can read the source. However, not many professional > developers actually have the time to assess open source code quality by > doing code inspections. I myself tend to go with reviews, previous > experience of software by the same people, experience of older versions > of the same program, and the provided documentation. I do too, but the moment I have to look at something, I can start evaluating it. I pitched a several-week project to management on the basis that I'd read the code of a component we were using, and concluded from quality issues where the code worked but wasn't pretty that it would not be worth it to try to fix the cases where it didn't work. > And I've used a number of programs for which the source was available > where problems caused us to dive into the code. The code passed visual > inspection, no problem...but it still had defects. Oh, sure. Nearly all code still has defects. The questions that are more interesting are how easy it will be to work on the code, or how likely it will be that fixing one defect will reveal others. -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated! |