Why Software Sucks

Earlier this year I enjoyed reading David Platt's 'Why Software Sucks', in which he discusses why software is regarded so poorly by so many people. It was entertaining, well written and contained a fair amount of wisdom. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone considering writing any software with a user interface.

I was reminded of the book today, when this masterpiece popped up on my screen (Click on it to see it full size):


I've read it several times now and I'm still not sure what it means. I'm pretty certain that I'm not likely to trust any site that asks questions like that. I'm also sure that I don't really trust the test and QA processes of any organisation that lets software like that out of the door.

To make matters worse, there is no way to tell this baffling and irritating dialog to go away. Choose 'No' and it will reappear every time you go back to the page that launched it.

It is always nice to have your prejudices reinforced (I'm not a massive Microsoft fan), and I did really enjoy the slightly theatrical rant I was able to have as a result. But my employer forces me to use this software, and I think I'd really rather they didn't, particularly when there are a number of open-source alternatives that treat their users with a little more respect.

P.S. I initially thought that it was another display of suckiness that it wasn't possible to tell Blogger to upload the picture of the dialog full size - but to do so would ruin the design of the page, so it's probably OK.