Computers have become more friendly, understandable, and lots of years and thought have been put into developing software to convince people that they want and need a computer.
My own personal dream is that the majority of the web runs on open source software.
Continuous Integration is a software development practice where members of a team integrate their work frequently, usually each person integrates at least daily - leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including test) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible. Many teams find that this approach leads to significantly reduced integration problems and allows a team to develop cohesive software more rapidly.
Software sucks because users demand it to.
If something is expensive to develop, and somebody's not going to get paid, it won't get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?
For most software startups, this translates to keep growing. For hardware startups, it translates to don't let your ship date slip.
We are still in the infancy of naming what is really happening on software development projects.
So we do software for watches, for phones, for TV sets, for cars. And some of these take a long time to catch on.
Just remember: you're not a 'dummy,' no matter what those computer books claim. The real dummies are the people who-though technically expert-couldn't design hardware and software that's usable by normal consumers if their lives depended upon it.
It's time to re-appreciate the original software: paper.
. . . your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
As for a picture, if it isn't worth a thousand words, the hell with it.
To create a usable piece of software, you have to fight for every fix, every feature, every little accommodation that will get one more person up the curve. There are no shortcuts. Luck is involved, but you don't win by being lucky, it happens because you fought for every inch.
Lisp. . . made me aware that software could be close to executable mathematics.
Software was the key element that would determine how useable and how broadly applicable the machine was.
I love software, because if you can imagine something, you can build it.
I don't like creating software anymore. It's too exact. It's like karate; there's no room for error.
Really great blogs do not take the place of great microprocessors. Great blogs do not replace great software. Lots and lots of blogs does not replace lots and lots of sales.
Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses. . . it's progressing. . . . Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. . . . 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.
Perhaps the single most dramatic example of this phenomenon of software eating a traditional business is the suicide of Borders and corresponding rise of Amazon