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Why software sucks

19th June 2002

MSNBC: Why software is so bad. First time round I gave up on this article after reading the joke at the start, writing it off as another dumbed down piece of ill informed rubbish. Then I saw Scott raving about it and decided to give it a second go. My initial impressions were completely wrong—it’s a well written (and surprisingly unbiased) article that takes a good look at the problems software faces and how industry practises lead to software getting worse rather than better. This year I’ve been doing a course on Software Engineering at University and a lot of the article made a great deal of sense in the context of the course. Well worth reading.

This is Why software sucks by Simon Willison, posted on 19th June 2002.

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Previously hosted at http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2002/06/19/whySoftwareSucks