'What Makes Software High-Quality?'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th May 2008 15:15 UTC, submitted by Shlomi Fish
Features, Office "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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Some Notes about the Post
by ShlomiFish on Wed 7th May 2008 08:57 UTC
ShlomiFish
Member since:
2005-10-10

Hi all!

Thanks for all the comments. Just a note: while it is true that the focus in the article is on open-source software (FOSS) or similar and so is my viewpoint (being a FOSS user and developer), many of the points I mention make sense for a lot of other types of software. (including web-sites or services).

As for the parameters themselves, they should not be considered as absolute requirements for quality, but rather as a generalised weighting function. By all means, some very good software and even very popular software fails to meet some of my criteria.

There is also some useful (for a change) commentary on the Joel on Software forum:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.627380.26

Now, I'd like to reply to the rest of the comments here.

Best Regards,

-- Shlomi Fish

Reply Score: 2

RE: Some Notes about the Post
by Larz on Wed 7th May 2008 19:56 in reply to "Some Notes about the Post"
Larz Member since:
2006-01-04

I applaud any attempts at defining good software, rather than relying on peoples gut feelings about software. I also think that standards such as ISO 9126 are too limited, as they only deal with quality attributes directly related to the software (functional or non-functional requirements). There is clearly a need to extend such quality models. But I am still having some issues regarding your model (or list).

For most, it seems mostly like a generalized framework containing evaluation criterias. The evaluator picks whatever requirements that are important from the list and then evaluates the software against these requirements (based on appropriate metrics). A bit like ISO 9126.

At other times it makes some fairly specific (and a tad biased) assumptions the requirements of the end-user (and implicitly - what exactly is good software). As for something like "Good Software Management" - I think it's a mistake to evaluate software on the development methodology. "Program X is not developed with method Y - dump it".

I think the model is too much a mix between general quality attributes and personal opinions.

Reply Parent Score: 1