2009/9/19 Kyley Harris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Kyley@harrissoftware.com">Kyley@harrissoftware.com</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
you know that is is a topic that will just never end in open debate ;)</blockquote><div><br>Yes, but it is more lively action that we have seen here for some time :-)<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im"><br><br>"I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then
fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I
would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to
in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it
after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance
of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months
and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from
the vendor."<br><br></div>It really just depends on what you are developing.. with most of the major businesses in the world still heavily relying on 10+ year old technology this just doesn't stack up. Advancement for the pure sake of it ony helps the OS providers and programming vendors like E... releasing new cool stuff every 18 months when the old stuff is not sufficient does not help the paying customer.. We have customers still relying on DOS software they have been using for 20 years.. still works, still BUG FREE and yes we stand behind our product. these releases of new technology are not improving their business at all.. what improves their business is the fact that we provided a software package that did the job reliably and still does. Our ability to provide a reliable product is based on our compilers etc also being bug free and reliable.. <br>
</blockquote><div><br>Bug free in this case clearly means that the software met their requirements. I would expect it to be bug free after 20 years, 20 years to get it right? Comparing someone who runs their business on DOS and whose requirements haven't changed to the wild west of software development is very odd I have to say. Its like comparing apples with kangaroos.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">a 3 Month Policy, or whatever agreed.. thats really up to each customer and provider and also probably depends on the nature of a product. Let me ask this.. do you think to programmers writing the software for 747's and rockets provide a 3 month warranty on peoples lives? </blockquote>
<div><br>Of course, that is why almost all software has a disclaimer in relation to its reliability when life or death is involved. It is only software specifically written for those situations that take them into account and they tend to be written in ADA. Again, do you write software that could cause people to die? I know people who have and by golly the whole development process is something different yet again. <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">no.. I'm sure they aspire to more than that because they know that their laziness or accident will cause lives.. Just like an Engineer, or Architect knows that mistakes will cost lives.. IMHO there are NO PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.. its not a profession yet.. its just a thing we all do for money. Every professional trade, be it Doctor, engineer, etc all share a simple thing called responsibility and accountability..<br>
</blockquote><div><br>A professional software developer is simply someone who does it as their main source of income. No need to complicate it further. I can't say I can see Engineers being comparable to our profession, all the work they do its very well known and all the problems have been solved already. Doctors on the other hand are more like us in terms of art/science and I would *love* to know a Doctor who I could pay once and if I didn't get well I could go back to again and again and get free treatment until they got it right. Accountability and responsibility aside, they get it wrong, you pay them each time they do - they have to live as well, and just like us, they are trying their best. <br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I am not targeting this at anyone, or even Embacardo.. I dont have a problem with the pricing of Pro At all, and if I ever upgrade.. $1000 here or there means nothing to me for the value it provides.. but at whatever price they set, they should make sure that it works for its intention.. to claim that at the time of release it is "Fit for no particular purpose" is crap, and a very singular reason to make me want to quit delphi in the future.. the purpose is to allow me to make application Rapidly and successfully RAD.. if there are issues that slow me down.. its failing.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>Its funny, its why you can't actually request your money back under the consumer guarantee act either. You don't own the software products (only if you have them developed for you), it is licensed for your use in perpetuity. As such, you don't own a product and can't claim fit for purpose rules apply to it. *All* commercial software is licensed like this specifically for this reason, and I find it strange you and Jolyon who both work in that space arguing any other point of view. This is how the software industry works? Do you have a problem with it? I think changing it would be quite untenable...<br>
<br>Wanting to quite Delphi in the future? Delphi 2007 was the best release in years and the team and Embarcadero are more committed to the product and its quality than has been true in 10 years. Even if you stay with a particular version of Delphi, if you aren't needing Win32 and x-platform and all the other things that come in the coming years, it should serve you extremely well. As Delphi 5 has done so many people. <br>
</div></div><br>Now for Jolyon's email:<br><br>Jolyon> Barely a day goes by without some Windows update or other
shoehorning itself into my XP system that Microsoft last got my money for almost
10 years ago.<br><br>Yes, but that is only because they haven't stopped supporting that platform. Do you see patches for Windows 95? 98? Millenium? Even Windows 2000 is no longer supported. Microsoft has the same situation, they stop supporting old software once it passes certain threasholds. In Microsoft's case, *they are still selling XP to new customers*. Most netbooks for example run XP. If you said they still issue patches for Windows 95 then you'd have something here, but they don't, and so the argument is well, empty.<br>
<br>Jolyon> And I can only hope that you were being funny in that
passage about “low quality requirements” not being bugs<br><br>We are talking Borland and its attitude to Delphi right? IMHO, Borland treated Delphi users very poorly. And it angered an awful lot of the people inside Borland who supported and love Delphi. Remember to distinguish between the people who build Delphi and who *sold* Delphi. I cannot imagine any developer who is content to ship poor quality code, not matter how much their management may tell them they need to.<br clear="all">
<br>Paul> Do you rmemeber when Microsoft wanted to charge for "upgrades" that were fixes and what happened?<br><br>No?<br><br>Richard<br><br>-- <br>---<br>Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor<br>Developers Inc Ltd<br>
web. <a href="http://www.developers-inc.co.nz">http://www.developers-inc.co.nz</a><br>ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384<br>skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter<br><br><br>