In short: an Internet service (like a website) doesn’t have to use the web as its main or only interface. Email interfaces offer the advantages of being asynchronous (you don’t have to be online to use it) and fast for repetitive sending of one step commands to a web server, and allow for requested interaction [...]

Software engineers have long told their bosses and clients that they can have software “fast, cheap, or right,” as long as they pick any two of those factors. Getting all three? Forget about it! But United Space Alliance (USA), NASA’s main shuttle support contractor, had a mandate to provide software that meets all three criteria.
[via [...]

Good software, in Humphrey’s view, “is usable, reliable, defect free, cost effective and maintainable. And software now is none of those things.”
A further thought on this. I’ve seen lists like this many times now. Often they even leave “maintainable” out - “fast, cheap and right” is the usual mantra.
But the one that almost everyone [...]

Good software, in Humphrey’s view, “is usable, reliable, defect free, cost effective and maintainable. And software now is none of those things.” [via FuzzyBlog]
This article covers a lot of the same ground as an article I was reading yesterday by Jerry Weinberg in Understanding the Professional Programmer. He compares the “if it compiles it must [...]