In the past few months I’m having some recurring thoughts and questions¹. What follows is mostly an attempt to force myself to structure these thougts and reach out to others that may share some insights on the subject. In other words: “warning: incoming rant.”

The subject of these questions is the current state of our software (I hesitate to say: Software Engineering, but I suppose it is implied). The general theme is: “why is the quality of our software so low?”. Some of the questions are:

• Why is software generally so slow?
• Why does software have so many bugs?
• Why can my computer be hacked? Why do virusses exist?
• Why do I need to restart my computer for this update? Why do updates exist at all?
• Why is software so complex?

Assuming the premises are correct (software is generally slow, has many bugs etcetera), the consequences of not answering the questions are quite serious. A few examples:

• Unstable and buggy software makes its users feel powerless.
• Bad performance means more computers running, which means a greater contribution to the greenhouse effect.
• The lack of a workable security model has opened the way for mass surveillance.
• Our lives are increasingly dependent on software. This means the above consequences are increasingly severe.

Some observations and hints towards the answers:

• The answers to the questions may very well be related.
• I have approximately 10 years of professional experience, yet I do not have the answers to the above questions ready.
• I am not alone. The top Google results for “why does software have bugs” are spammy sites. Not serious people seriously answering a serious problem.

A few hints as to the answers:

• I do not have a full answer (yet?), but the title of this blog hints at some ideas.
• Software Engineering as a field is very forgetful of its past.
• We are a young field. There’s a lot of space for cowboys in the west, and in a gold rush it’s often more important who’s first than who’s right.
• A lack of ambition keeps us from asking the important questions.

I hope to expand on the above in more detail shortly.