| There are a lot of very good answers already in this topic: - quality doesn't bring enough to the business value; - high demand requires hiring people without enough knowledge/skill; - other people have just different quality metrics than you; - "know-how" transfer between generations is difficult... IMHO the similar question may be asked about any domain of life: why not all the buildings are well-built? Why the political/social systems are not just? Why good art is so hard to spot nowadays? They have different answers, but there is one common theme: building "well" is difficult; creating a "just" political system is "difficult", creating a good art is difficult; also writing "useful and reliable" software is difficult. It's only natural that not everybody is a perfect software engineer, therefore is not a surprise that not every software will be perfect. What's more, there are a lot more mediocre software engineers than the perfect ones, therefore the majority of software will be... mediocre. The same about art nowadays — the sheer amount of music produced (even the word "produce" suggests it) every day makes sure that, in overall, there is a lot more terrible music compared to good compositions. I believe that software engineering has the same issue — the rising number of software projects is an enough explanation for low quality of the software we are able to perceive. In fact, I don't believe the quality of the software engineering degraded over the years, but it's just more difficult to spot the great projects in the avalanche of "normal" life. |