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DrD · 08-13-2016, 10:13 AM

Quote:a) the fact that it's basically impossible, in practice, to make bug-free software has to do with e.g.:
* fundamental physics reasons: trying to limit the growth of entropy is an error-generating process;
* the fact that software is made by us petty imperfect humans, who make mistakes and errors;
* monetary cost reasons: coding with formally proven methods is horrendously complex and expensive, and can only be cornered to code bases with extremely low number of lines. One of the most complex such code bases is seL4, which is only formally proven for a small subset of its targets (and even then, the proof has to assume that the processor's components are running according to their specification), and has the order of magnitude of 10K (1e4) LoC. Modern desktop / tablet / smartphone computers are considered to be running the order of magnitude of 1G (1e9) LoC, or at least multiple hundreds of millions (1e8) of LoC.

True enough, the broader message in point a, but specifically point a is just another set of excuses for marketing products that are underdeveloped.

Software issues are a bit different than hardware issues, such as the keys of the hp prime. A huge number of lines of code, is a composite set of smaller, more manageable fragments. Each fragment can be developed to attain a business model goal. The goal includes the components you identified in point a, but also reflects on the corporate overall market image, which is to say, that if you market a product as being suitable for a task, and your corporate mission consistently meets those objectives, the customer base will respond confidently, and vice versa.

Hardware issues, have an intuitive feature of feature of being self-evident. Quality hardware reinforces product confidence. Hp represented the best in overall product quality available, and anything less is very disappointing. Fall back on the available excuses, is out of character.

A counter-example to demonstrate the corporate effect, is the emissions misrepresentation by Volkswagen on diesel fueled vehicles. To the list of excuses from point a, we can also identify and consider this corporate value, when purchasing VW products. Plan to buy a new diesel fueled vehicle anytime soon?