Wietse Venema Quotes

All software sucks.

Defect-free software does not exist.

The challenge with Postfix, or with any piece of software, is to update software without introducing problems.

If I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects; or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!

The reality of most software development is that the consequences of failure are simply nonexistent.

There is a strong movement towards increased accountability for software developers and software development organizations.

Most of the effort in the software business goes into the maintenance of code that already exists.

I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.

I think it's a combination of technical and social factors that leads to all the defects in deployed software.

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial chance of introducing another.

Software as an asset isn't stable over time; it needs to be maintained.

Yet, I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages.

For us, the real goal is to make it so that the software ecosystem is as healthy as possible.

There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed.

Like all software, Qmail can survive only when it keeps up with changing requirements.

Agitator and the Agitar Management Dashboard lower the barriers to accountability in software development and increase the value of developer testing.

We shifted our philosophy from being a computer mapping group that would support planners to the idea of building actual software that would be well engineered. Because at that time, our software was not well-engineered at all; it was basically built with project funding and for project work, largely by ourselves.

The problem is, we're moving to software-as-service, which can be yanked or transformed at any moment. The ability of your PC to run independent code is an important safety valve.

This will surprise some of your readers, but my primary interest is not with computer security. I am primarily interested in writing software that works as intended.

When I write software, I know that it will fail, either due to my own mistake, or due to some other cause.

I'm not saying we purposely introduced bugs or anything, but this is kind of a natural result of any complexities of software... that you can't fully test it.

Apple's advantage is that it designs and builds software together, so if the software isn't excellent, it does the superlative hardware a disservice.

Microsoft knows that reliable software is not cost effective. According to studies, 90% to 95% of all bugs are harmless. They're never discovered by users, and they don't affect performance. It's much cheaper to release buggy software and fix the 5% to 10% of bugs people find and complain about.

Frequently, crashes are followed with a message like 'ID 02'. 'ID' is an abbreviation for idiosyncrasy and the number that follows indicates how many more months of testing the product should have had.

With software products, it is usual to find that the software has major 'bugs' and does not work reliably for some users... The lay public, familiar with only a few incidents of software failure, may regard them as exceptions caused by exceptionally inept programmers. Those of us who are software professionals know better; the most competent programmers in the world cannot avoid such problems.