Why we all should anticipate buggier and worse quality software going forward

The developers can write quality code if they have an opportunity to use a debugger to fix the issues with it. This is called de-bugging for a reason. Human brain has limited ability to analyze computer code. Even the best developers introduce bugs unintentionally and even the best of the best need debugger to visualize the call stack, variable values and follow execution flow.

The trend of the day in software development is to use XML to define program structures - be it composition and layout of GUI or representation of database tables. Everyone is happy - XML is plain text, it can be generated automatically and it is self-describing. They are forgetting of only one important thing: XML cannot be debugged.

To the day there are several major architectures on the market that use XML markup for building applications: Nokia Qt (phasing out), Microsoft WPF, Oracle JavaFX (and some other Java technologies that make extensive use of XML configuration for generating program code). XML was introduced under the slogan of skinning, where a developer was supposed to hire a graphic artist to create visual layouts in XML and merge them into the application at runtime.

There are several obvious problems with that approach, but I want to only focus on debugging. When XML file is being loaded (imported, injected if you like) into the application program, there is no code where developer can set a breakpoint and see why it is not rendering as intended. Loading and rendering of XML will be performed by an API library. If there is a bug in that library, there is little developer can do to discover and address it. Further, as every data-driven application, the programs build with XML based technologies may not exhibit all of their potential problems in development and testing. Those problems will surface in production use and will have to be addressed via bug reports.

The end result for everyone will be reduced quality of software compared with old school writing of code. Buckle up, users! You are in for a rough ride.

Posted by: LinuxLies at 12:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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