Software Quality

I've been meaning to write about the cost of writing software for a while (unfortunately it's sitting as a draft), but the recent Tokyo Stock Exchange fiasco highlights the true cost of not making the effort to write software correctly. When will people (i.e. the management with the money bags) learn that the cost of maintenance and also mistakes are orders of magnitude higher than the costs of doing it properly the first time (and doing it once). Creating quality software is not rocket science, there are well known methods for doing this. What I find amazing is how many organisations baulk at paying slightly more initially, but will happily pay bucket loads down the track.