Re: Software Vendors

[Jim Langston <jlangston@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The program I had written for the software house was 100% bug
free.  It did not have a single bug, at all.  In fact, it was not possible
for the end user to "break" it.  Any value the user could of entered
was handled.  It worked exactly as advertised and everyone was
extremely happy with it.

That is, until the president put the bug in.

There was another system I had written for a retail store that was
a complete retail management system.  Inventory, Invoicing,
Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger.
The very few bugs that were found were quickly fixed by me
free of charge.

It is not impossible to write bug free code.  It is actually very
easy to do so, as long as when you are designing and coding the
program you think of and validate any data the users can input.
Too many times I have been looking at someone else's program
and tell them, "well, if the user puts in a value less than zero the
program will crash".  The response has almost always been, "Well
they shouldn't put in values less than zero.  Let it crash".

That has not been acceptable to me.  I will go ahead and add the
extra one to 3 lines it takes to validate the values entered.  My
feeling has always been if I allow the user to enter something, I
darn better well be able to handle it in my program, or I am not
going to let them enter it in the first place.

Yes, it can add 10% to the life of a project by making it what I
like to call "bullet proof".  But after that program is written and
done with, I never have to look at it again unless it is to improve
it for some reason.

Regards,

Jim Langston

Colin Williams wrote:

> <SNIP>
> Try and name one software vendor in your experience that has error free
> software, or even close to that.

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