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From: eer@ritcv.UUCP (Ed Reed)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: quality software
Message-ID: <99@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Oct-86 11:18:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: ritcv.99
Posted: Thu Oct 16 11:18:37 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 02:56:43 EDT
References: <10410@cca.UUCP> <10528@cca.UUCP> <3877@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 49

In article <10410@cca.UUCP> Chris Torek writes:
> 
> Having written and distributed a few programs myself, I have come
> to the tenative conclusion that the documentation is actually
> MORE important than the code itself!  If the code is buggy, a few
> people will have trouble.  If the documentation is buggy, many will
> have trouble.
> 
I'd speculate further...more software developers (companies and
individuals) have gone bankrupt because of buggy or non-existant
documentation (leading to unreasonable expectations of the actual
software) than because of buggy software!  No scientific basis
of fact, you understand, but I almost did!  

The problem is you have a wonderful software product, but without
proper user documentation, the salesman sells something your software
doesn't do, your customer tries it, finds out it doesn't work, and
then sues your tail off for misrepresentation.  This was a real
problem during the 70s when minicomputers were proliferating.  

> A lack of documentation is always a mark of `universityware', though
> the converse is not true.  A company cannot get away with selling
> undocumented software, while a university can easily give away the
> same.  Yet my own limited observation tells me that the accuracy
> of the documentation (when present) is equally good---or bad---in
> `universityware' and `companyware'.  [From here on, I will use the
> abbreviations `u-ware' and `c-ware'.]

With regard to univerityware...what worries me more is that 
school is where people learn both HOW and WHAT to do...since they
DON'T learn importance of software quality and documentation, it's
left to industry to do it...and that's a large reason why college
new-hires get so unhappy when they're assigned to entry-level
coding jobs with close supervision...they haven't learned what is
expected of them during their 3-4 years of school, so they'll spend
3-4 years of their careers learning it.

------------------
Standard disclaimers apply...I'm just an adjunct and a grad student
actually PAYING for this mscs degree, not a real person at all.

-- 
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Ed Reed - Rochester Institute of Technology
phone:    (716) 334-3006
Delphi:   EERTEST
GEnie:    SQA.INC
Usenet:   ...rochester!ritcv!eer
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