Oh no no.
Most software we use daily is barely running, filled with holes, in fact crap. Developed by multiple contractors, barely maintained.
Most software we use daily is barely running, filled with holes, in fact crap. Developed by multiple contractors, barely maintained.
- Gmail
- Google Search
- Android
- Firefox
- IntelliJ
- OSX
- Slack
Except maybe for OSX, none of those fits the definition of "barely maintained" (I'm kidding ofcourse - obviously OSX is maintained too!). I suspect none of it is "developed by multiple contractors" either (though, why would that automatically imply "crap"). None of it is "barely running" - they might have some issues, but they run. Some of them, impressively well (take Google Search, or Gmail. They have outstanding uptime; Slack isn't too bad, either; and both IntelliJ and OSX run rather well too).
One of my former teacher used to say; "a program is like an airplane; it either works or it doesn't. You can't say that an airplane mostly flies". If you take that worldview, sure, all software is crap. But that worldview is deeply flawed IMO, in a very practical sense.
> I suspect none of it is "developed by multiple contractors" either
> None of it is "barely running"
You do realize that Android is on your list, right? "Barely running" fits the bill for most Android devices out there, and "developed by multiple contractors" is the primary reason.
I added it later (realized I use it quite a lot and it's unfair to not put it there), but you do get to an interesting distinction: Android runs quite fine on my phone. So when it's barely running, it's a software/hardware mismatch. And products, as long as they're software products, tend to be rather good. When they are part of other products the quality may be more of a "hit and miss".
But, is that a fault of the software? Take cars, I'm sure the software in my car is imperfect, "crap" by some standards.... but, I haven't had it fail. I did have a sensor failure, though. And on the previous car, I've had lots of other hardware failures, and no observable software failures. Would a pacemaker with crappy battery (say, an exploding one) be any better than a pacemaker with crappy software? And how often is the software actually used to mask/work around the crappier parts of the product? That must be quite a lot, and increasing. Sure, the software in a product might be crappy - but products are crappy all the time, so why should the software in some of them make any exception? You buy a cheap pair of sport shoes, you don't expect them to be the same quality as a pair of Nike shoes (and even Nike ones are imperfect)... why do you expect good software on crappy cheap security cameras?
* When it finds a wireless network that it recognises the audio it outputs (my .mp3s) start becoming choppy.
* Software is presently unable to read the status of the battery properly (probably a hardware failure).
* Many apps struggle with being persistently on and my mobile data connection and require occasional reboots to function.
* Video apps appear to take some sort of exclusive lock somewhere so if YouTube struggles with a video and I close it down and open up TwitchTv then Twitch will have exactly the same problem or even completely fail to render.
* There's a difference in my book between e.g. "ocasionally annoying" and "crap"; e.g. try listing the good things Android does for you, and compare the lists.
While a harsh analogy, this illustrates that the difference here is in the definition of "crap". Your definition of "crap" is "does not work", whereas the submission's author's definition is more like "unsound design".