White Box Software Development

摘要

This article attempts to debunk the populist view that building high quality software is difficult and costly, and that having software systems that crash is an acceptable state of affairs. The technology to build predictable reliable software systems exists today. Principled engineering judgment can be used to tailor software development so that quality can be built in with cost in mind - this is particularly the case with safety critical systems, where the application of standards can force an unnecessarily rigorous approach for little proven benefit. This article explores the general poor quality of software "in the large", the public's (and the industry's) view that this is in some way acceptable, and then presents some real case studies which show how quality can be built in without the need to invest in overweight tools and technologies.