It is discussions like this which make me truly admire Douglas Adams for his insights and ability to express them.
For instance, when I read through the debate here, I can't help notice how many of the arguments are really variations of "It's a bypass! You've got to build bypasses! Not really any alternative."
'That is the sorry reality of the bazaar Raymond praised in his book: a pile of old festering hacks, endlessly copied and pasted by a clueless generation of IT "professionals" who wouldn't recognize sound IT architecture if you hit them over the head with it.'
I was hoping for some kind of expansion or attempt at a solution here (which of course would be non-trivial).
It's Akerlof's "Market For Lemons" writ large. Users can't assess the quality of software before they buy it and sink ages of their own time into learning it. Often users can't assess quality problems even after they've bought it. So the market isn't going to reward quality.
(The original paper was about cars; now we have software in our cars the problem is twice as bad. VW 'defeat devices' and Toyota 'unintended acceleration' passim).
It is discussions like this which make me truly admire Douglas Adams for his insights and ability to express them.
For instance, when I read through the debate here, I can't help notice how many of the arguments are really variations of "It's a bypass! You've got to build bypasses! Not really any alternative."