Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th May 2008 15:15 UTC, submitted by Shlomi Fish
"Which parameters make software applications high-quality? And which parameters or methods, while desirable, are not directly 'quality'?" This is the question the author of this article asks himself. Most of his 'parameters' make a lot of sense, but be aware that the article is about what makes an open source program high quality, and not programs in general. This important bit is stated in the one-sentence 'abstract'.
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Member since:
2005-11-13
Nor does not having source code available mean that the program is not high quality either. IMHO, this article has a strong open source bias, and should be renamed to: "What Makes Open Source Software High-Quality?'
A high quality piece of software should 'mostly' function correctly.. are you f**king kidding me? Only in the open source world, where it seems that people are used to being stuck with a buttload of alpha/beta-quality software on Sourceforge does this make absolutely any sense. The only time I would ever consider using something that only works most of the time is when there's absolutely no alternatives available. If that means I have to pay $ for something, then so be it.
A few more items that the article doesn't touch on:
- Portability. I agree with this, but not hte way the author intended. Software should be portable enough so that you can copy it to a USB thumb drive, re-install the OS, copy it back to the hard drive and have it run, or just run it off the thumb drive. Anything that barfs DLL/library files all over the system is a loser, IMHO.
- Modular. If you have a program that does several different things that are separate from each other (such as a web browser that does email as well), I should be able to tell the program not to load up in memory the parts I don't use, or to only load it when needed.
- Ease of use. This excludes any app where I have to memorize shortcut keys right from the start to get anything done. It's cool to have them, but at least give me a menu to work with until I learn my way around. Those who don't need such a thing should be free to turn it off (see above point).
- Stable. This shouldn't need any explanation.
- Customizable enough to keep power users happy, but keep those options just far enough out of reach so that new users who aren't looking for them don't get overwhelmed.