>Firstly, things very rarely go wrong with a house whereas they too often do with software. You don't think that there are lots of factors that go into the construction of a house??? I would guess that there are more factors to building a good house successfully than there are in building a good piece of software! There certainly are many more manufacturers involved!!... And a wider variety of skills too!! Frankly it has always amazed me that a house or a car can be built so cheaply compared to software!

I know perfectly well what it takes to build a house. My dad was a contractor while I was growing up. He was also twice president of the Utah Home Builders Association and has served in a couple of positions for the National Association of Homebuilders. Currently he's a real estate agent, has his brokers license, the CCIM (equivalent to a Master's degree for a broker) and is a certified appraiser. He recently served as an expert witness in a lawsuit where a number of homes were flooded when an irrigation canal burst. While I was growing up, I worked several job sites for him. I definately understand home construction.

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>That a problem is far more easily detected in a (physical) house than it is in software is WHOLLY because our manufacturer of choice (MS). They could make it plain as pie IF THEY CHOSE TO, but they don't and we let them get away with it!!! Take the MAC platform, which is widely said to virtually never crash. I gotta bet that SUN is far more reliable too and I know that IBM mainframe software is.
>Please don't blame it on non-MS software like drivers. MS could address that too, if they wished to. They don't wish to and, again, WE accept that.

Yes, MS could .. but they have decided to keep the OS open, as opposed to Apple, which keeps tight reins on the Mac OS.

>If anything, software should be far far EASIER to manufacture "cleanly" because it is non-physical!!!! That it is as it is today - CRAPPY - is testament to marvellous marketing that is focused on NEW and not on BETTER. Oh sure, they say it is "better". From a functionality point-of-view they may be accurate, but from a QUALITY point-of-view they are lying through their fangs.

I disagree. I experience far less crashes with XP than I ever did with WIn3.x, 95, 98, NT, or 2000. And with each of those versions, I noticed a difference. Performance has gotten better and the OS more stable.

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>I honestly can't think of any other endeavour in life, save possibly marriage, where so much slack is so continuously cut by so many for so little.
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>In a follow-on message you attributed the article's thrust to the author's involvement with Lotus Notes. How do you 'connect' them?. . . is it that he too probably hates that product as you do and so was inspired to write the artlce or is it that he is attached to Lotus Notes so his voice counts for naught?
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Because Bloated Goats is such a piece of crap. Its difficult to use. It has very few features. Have you ever tried to create a mail rule? Forget it. And, when Bloated Goats does crash, it crashes hard, requiring a reboot to get it running again. I think his voice when it comes to crappy software counts a lot as he uses crappy software all the time and has been on teams that developed it.