Why Software Sucks (more than it should)

Here at Boys Books we were breaking in another software slave (intern). As usual we waxed poetically (actually dirty limericks). We grumbled about the olden days when software did interesting things and worked in expected ways. This is of course a lie. Things are vastly better now, they just suck more.

If we can create a vacuum that never loses suction, why can't we write software that doesn't suck?

We think the real reason is the invention of railroads. One track minds have plagued us as a metaphor ever since the iron giants rolled across the American plains scarring prairie dogs. The common programmer seems to be trapped on the tracks with just one goal at a time in their heads.

Ask a programmer to create an game. They will create a great game, but that's all. What they won't do is make it easy to learn, simple to install, and other useful things like integrate with facebook and worse, won't show up on google. The game will be one dimensional suckyness.

You might say, "My iPad games were easy to install." Well, that's one. But why was the game easy to install? Because Apple installed it, not the programmer. The game might (and few are) be easy to use. Again, the only reason is iPad's touch interface and accelerometers. The same game would require the user to memorize fifty keyboard commands. The programmer is still on one track, but the track is happily going through some scenic parks rather than a toxic waste dump. The same programmer in front of a PC is still writing the same garbage.

What is the solution? Jump the tracks! Toss a few pennies in front of that train and derail it! The pennies are the imperatives that we know as who, what, why, when, and how. Programmers just have the rails of what and how. They need the rest to really get things moving.

But don't stop with the imperatives. We need to also have time, location, emotion, motivation, least surprise, novelty, and a web of connections to all of these concepts and the imperatives.

Why shouldn't the game play differently based on your location? If you play a driving game in Dallas, half the drivers have guns (and use them), and the other half of drivers are moving at ten miles under the speed limit and have Oklahoma license plates. See what just location adds? What about 'when'? Imagine racing at rush hour or through cop infested school zones in the early morning?

NOTE: These ideas and concepts copy write by Daniel Brookshier. All ideas are for sale at a reasonable price.

Anthropomorphic Software

Software is seen as living, and thus responsible for its own bad behavior.

People talk to their dogs. Dogs know a few commands, but the average 2 year old is way smarter.

People talk to their cats... Enough said about that!

But programmers really talk a lot with their software.

"There is something wrong with the code." That is talking about code like a living thing.

What you should say is, "There is something wrong with the code I wrote."

This isn't just semantics or being a language nazi. Think about how you feel when you say each sentence. Think about good programmers and bad programmers. What type of sentence structure did they use?

The more you think of software as 'alive', the less you will look to the real issue: The programmer. The programmer is alive. The programmer is a human and full of faults, assumptions, and general sloppiness.

Don't sit there studying the manic depressive software bugs. Study people because that's why software looks manic depressive.