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.
More recent articles
- Vibe engineering - 7th October 2025
- OpenAI DevDay 2025 live blog - 6th October 2025
- Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle - 5th October 2025