>It started long before BillG. IBM had a policy that once they got to a certain number of bugs per thousand lines of code, that the software was released.

I wonder how the IBM "number of bugs per thousand ines of code" compares with Microsoft's "number of bugs per thousand lines of code" (don't mean to single out Microsoft -- it has a lot of company). Actually, as I think about it, I'm not sure that would be a fair comparison; there was a great effort to minimize lines of code in the days of hyper-efficient computer programming. With large memories these days, lines of code may not be a meaningful or useful concept.

>
>
>>
>>Evan, I agree that the Windows software is becoming less buggy. I use W2000 at the office, and I rarely have to reboot. However, at home, I still have W98, and it crashes several times a day. I was comparing the 'modern software', e.g., Windows (but others as well) with the pre-Window, pre-Bill Gates, pre-PC days. And I believe there is a big difference between these two eras of software development.