I would like to take you through an imaginary scenario before I get to the point of this post.

Imagine you need some new plumbing installed in your house so you can put a shower downstairs. You call a few plumbers who come over so you can show them what you would like. These plumbers send you quotes for doing the job. You decide to go with a young chap who seemed to know what he was talking about. He wasn’t the cheapest quote, and he wasn’t the most expensive.

A couple of weeks later the plumber comes over and within a week you have a new shower fitted downstairs. Life is good.

A couple of days later you notice that the shower tray is leaking water onto the floor underneath, and this is starting to ruin your carpet in the room next to the new shower room.

You call the plumber and he heads over the following day. He examines the shower tray and notices that it is not sealed correctly around the edges. The plumber then informs you it will cost another $350 to seal the tray correctly.

How do you feel?

Should you pay the money?

Shouldn’t he have done it correctly in the first place and therefore it is his liability?

Now think about how the software industry works. If the project was a software project, and it had ‘leaks’ would you expect to pay more to have them fixed? Why is it any different? When software developers do a shoddy job they should be the ones that are liable.

I know a number of software development service companies that charge extra for fixing bugs in their work.

In my mind they have no motivation to create high quality software, in fact the opposite. If they can earn more money by writing buggy code and then charging to fix the bugs, the motivation is to write buggy code.

This is not just wrong, it is something that hurts the industry.

The software development industry has a bad name. Most people think the software industry is full of overpaid nerds who fail to deliver high quality products. Sorry, but it is true. The reality is that professionals in many other industries get paid far more than software developers (and work shorter hours). These professionals must be offering a greater perceived value to justify the higher pay rates.

So enough of the rant, what are you going to do about it?

Yes you! If you are part of this industry it is your problem.