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- Path: shelby.visix.com!david
- From: david@visix.com (David Charlap)
- Newsgroups: alt.computer.consultants,comp.edu,comp.lang.basic.misc,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.pascal.borland,comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc,comp.misc,comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.os2.programmer.misc,comp.programming
- Subject: Re: Can we do programming without seeing the end user?
- Date: 28 Mar 1996 23:57:10 GMT
- Organization: Visix Software, Reston VA
- Message-ID: <4jf90m$jo2@shelby.visix.com>
- References: <4j20es$ea8@atlantis.atlantis.actrix.gen.nz> <4j2fce$8sk@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4j7een$3ut@shelby.visix.com> <Pine.OSF.3.91a.960327221409.9179I-100000@christa.unh.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: celica
-
- In article <Pine.OSF.3.91a.960327221409.9179I-100000@christa.unh.edu>,
- Ben Scott <bscott@christa.unh.edu> wrote:
- >On 26 Mar 1996, David Charlap wrote:
- >
- >> >In short, don't talk to the users, marry them. Unfortunately, I haven't
- >> >seen nearly enough systems designed this way.
- >
- >> Yes, this is a great idea. But there's one big problem - the cost.
- >
- > While it is true that the cost of doing *everything* right is way too
- >high (thus "marrage" is a bit extreme, even in metaphor), you have to
- >consider a few things. One, if the user doesn't like what they see, they
- >may not buy it, period. Two, if they buy it and hate it, you're likely
- >to spend a lot of time fixing what you could have done right in the first
- >place. Don't forget the cost of supporting the product. Assuming you're
- >not going to charge for support, you have to hire a staff of techies to
- >field user questions. This becomes expensive. So trying to do what the
- >user wants may not be that costly after all.
-
- Well, yes. I hope nobody thinks I'm advocating slipshod screw-the-
- user development!
-
- My point is simply that people who ask "why can't my $100 word
- processor be completely bug free" don't realize that they're asking
- the impossible. There are five things everybody wants in software:
-
- - Performance
- - Stability (no bugs)
- - Features
- - Cheap (low cost)
- - On-time delivery
-
- It's not possible to get all of these in any non-trivial product. If
- you're really good, you can get three of them. If you're willing to
- completely sacrifice "Cheap" you can get the other four. But that's
- about it.
-
- Development, testing, and debugging use up a lot of man hours. Very
- often, a company has to sacrifice some degree of performance,
- stability or features in order to make a deadline or to sell for a
- price the market will bear.
-
- You see the results of this in nearly all commercial software. It's
- not incompetence, but a natural outcome of developing a product in a
- highly competitive market.
-
- Yes, occasionally someone gets lucky and manages to get four or all
- five of these criterial, but one is really foolish to expect dumb luck
- to work in your favor every time.
-
- ---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
- David Charlap | The contents of this message are not the opinions of |
- david@visix.com | Visix Software, nor of anyone besides myself. |
- Visix Software, Inc. +---------------------------+----------------------------+
- Member of Team-OS/2 | What does this button do? |
- ---------------------+---------------------------+
-