Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!bu.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: Safe coding practices
Message-ID: <14991@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 27 Jan 91 00:21:00 GMT
References: <22878@well.sf.ca.us> <60@garth.UUCP> <87681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 25

In article <87681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Bob Manson <manson@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>Because they don't care. I've met several people who call themselves
>"programmers" that think writing portable, reasonably limit-free code
>is a joke. They've just got a job to get done, a hacky piece of code
>to be written, and they don't care what it looks like or if it'll work
>a year from now.

This seems a bit afield from the purpose of the newsgroup, but my
observation is that there are several factors contributing to low
software quality.  Some that come to mind are:
	1)  Care in program design and implementation is not rewarded
	by management, but large output of (even low-quality) code is.
	2)  There is a perception that a good job would take longer
	than a quick hack, and production is already behind demand.
	3)  Formal "computer science" education does not prepare
	students for real-world concerns.
	4)  Novice programmers do not get their work reviewed by
	competent ones, so they do not know what errors they've made.
	5)  A task is perceived as a "one shot" throw-away job, but
	ends up pressed into production in unanticipated environments.
For the most part, these are problems of technical management, although
if you want to, you could assign some blame to programmers themselves
for being insufficiently self-motivated to properly cope with the
managerial deficiences.  It is not just computing that has these
problems; I've seen it across a wide range of technical industries.