Hello everyone- I'm working on a presentation of Perl::Critic for the local perlmongers group. As part of the presentation, I would like to make some comments about the current industry trends around software quality. Basically, I'd like to assert that there is a growing emphasis on software quality, give some examples that demonstrate my assertion, and offer some possible explanations for the trend. Here's what I've got so far:
<posit> The growing interest in software quality is evident by the emergence of the Phalanx project and testing services like CPANTS and SpikeSource. There has also been a lot of growth in the number of Test::* modules on CPAN and several new quality-related publications such as "Perl Best Practices" and "Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook." And all this is underscored by the proliferation of iterative and test-driven development methodologies. This trend is being driven by a "flight to quality" among software consumers. When selecting a software product, consumers are not just looking at feature sets, but they are also starting to look for indicators of quality and durability that enhance their return on investment by prolonging the service life of the product. At the same time, IT managers are leveraging quality as a defense against outsourcing. By lowering maintenance costs via quality control, managers can avoid (or at least postpone) having to scrap their entire system and rebuild from scratch in India. </posit> So that's my theory. Do you think my assertion is correct? Can you think of any other examples (in the Perl community or otherwise) that demonstrate the shift toward better quality software? Is this phenomenon limited to open-source products? Are there some commercial examples as well? What do you suppose are the economic/business/cultural drivers behind the quality trend? Thanks for sharing your thoughts, -Jeff __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
