Software Aesthetics 748
cconnell writes: "Most software design is lousy. Most software is so bad, in fact, that if it were a bridge, no one in his or her right mind would walk across it. If it were a house, we would be afraid to enter. The only reason we (software engineers) get away with this scam is the general public cannot see inside of software systems. If software design were as visible as a bridge or house, we would be hiding our heads in shame. This article is a challenge to engineers, managers, executives and software users (which is everyone) to raise our standards about software. We should expect the same level of quality and performance in software we demand in physical construction. Instead of trying to create software that works in a minimal sense, we should be creating software that has internal beauty." We had a good discussion on a related topic half a year ago.
Beautiful software (Score:3, Funny)
software is incredibly complex... (Score:3, Funny)
Ever disected anything? It's MESSY.
Other trades include: (Score:1, Funny)
and journalism.
Re:Open Source, of course (Score:3, Funny)
Re:software is incredibly complex... (Score:2, Funny)
That's a feature, not a bug :)
Re:Not this stupid 'programming is art' BS again! (Score:3, Funny)
The key is to format the code so it looks like an ASCII figure of a bug. The viewer, if he is hip, will appreciate the irony.
Absolutely! And furthermore... (Score:2, Funny)
In the meantime, the author of this article ought to turn his attention to explaining to managers *why* they should care about beautiful software design. Until management gives us the time and budget to do otherwise, we engineers are just going to keep on writing code as well as we can within the contraints we're given. It's not like we *enjoy* writing crappy software.
Re:software is incredibly complex... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:software is incredibly complex... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:what about women? (Score:1, Funny)
In my experience, they all think they're smarter than men.
Reminds me of an old joke... (Score:1, Funny)
"If you had just boarded an airliner and discovered that your team of programmers had been responsible for the flight control software, how many of you would disembark immediately?"
Among the ensuing forest of raised hands only one man sat motionless.
When asked what he would do, he replied that he would be quite content to stay on board.
With his team's software, he reasoned, the plane was unlikely to even taxi as far as the runway, let alone take off.
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If the company I worked for made the software, the plane would start to burn, slowly. The cabin crew run around busily telling everyone that the plane was NOT on fire. The crew wouldn't tell the captain. That's because the captain is passed out. The plane is slowly consumed by flames, however, the passengers don't notice, because the temperature only rises very slowly. The plane then explodes (too late to do anything about it, after all, they believed the cabin crew), killing everyone. Falling back to earth, the captain wakes up and starts screaming "REBOOT IT!!!!!".
How many of YOU would trust yourselves or the people you work with software that deals with life or death?
We'd be screwed if people started coding better... (Score:2, Funny)