| The vibe I get from this article: If the customers of the software written today cared about quality -- and they _should_ care about quality -- they'd demand a higher standard of quality for the money they are paying. They don't, though. Firstly, the users aren't the customers. The customers are the advertisers or corporate buyers. Secondly, the users don't _want_ to be customers. They'd rather whatever they can get for free that anything that costs money, even if the thing that costs money could be orders of magnitude better. The first thought I have: I think quality is inclusive of size, speed, and reliability. Quality is _also_ features and functionality. It is also user experience. Probably many other things too, but this is just off the top of my head. I'm also not sure users would come rushing to the side of programmers if _they_ became the customers. I am the customer of companies that make many other things in my life. The quality probably isn't what it could be if that consideration was put much more front and center. For many things, I am _fine_ with that. For the same reasons, I don't think the users of software would be obviously wrong. Certainly I don't think they're obviously wrong enough for me to become preachy. If writing software that isn't to the level of quality I demand or need causes me existential dread, I am now willing to say that might be a "me" problem. |