Over-coded Software


<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	Over-coded software is becoming a serious problem in the software development field.  You may ask, what is over-coded software, as it is a fairly new concept.  In general it refers to software that has so many features that it inhibits the basic function of the program.  It started quite some time ago and is now reaching levels of unacceptable programming.
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	For example; a text editor that a person can type faster than the program can put the characters on the screen.  You would think it was running on a 4 Hertz machine instead of a 2.6 GHz one.  Another example are features or functions that get in the way such as two double click events, that are now part of the operating systems.  If you click fast it behaves normally, but if your click is a little slow in jumps into renaming the file name!  This particular feature is one I personally just despise, as it is always getting me and slowing me down.  Another one that I hate is grabbing some characters and then moving them with this weird little circular action to another spot in the text and I’ve never actually figured out that little circular action!  It just gets in my way, I just wanted to select, not move.
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	Often times the features do not even work properly such as search and replace!  In other cases many of the so called features are never used and simply take up memory and slow down the program.  One of my favorites is the smart tab indent that is supposed to indent the next line at the proper location for programming readability.  I’ve yet to meet one that works properly!
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	So the question of the day is; what is going on?  The answer is not as simple as it may seem.  From one point of view, the programmer is trying to provide all the features that may be needed for his/her program.  But too many features is just too many features if it slows the program down too much.
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	 One possible answer is a programmer is not experienced enough and does not write code that is what we call  “ tight code ”.  And in fact the problem may be that it is just sloppy coding.  In the old days of programming the coder had to write tight code as DOS had limited memory. These days they think they have fast machines and don’t need tight code.
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>	On the other hand it could be the programming language that is the problem and it is what is over-coded and runs slow.  When I say that programming language I am referring to two different things.  In one case it could be the programming languages interpreter that is required for the program written in that language.  In the other case it could be a programming language compiler that compiles the program into computer readable code.
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	In review we have four possibilities for slow  and cumbersome programs:
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    <li> Over featured</li>
    <li> Sloppy coding</li>
    <li> Slow interpreter</li>
    <li> Slow compiled software by crappy compiler</li>

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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>Historically software has been released with bugs, commonly.  One well known programming language was released with over 300 bugs that were recognized by the company!  This is nothing but a lack of testing the software properly before releasing it.  Software testing is required and for some reason is only done at a minimum level!
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<p style='text-indent:30px;'>It is understandable that a few bugs might get by, but when the bugs crash the program you know it was not tested at all!  Unfortunately it seems to be coming more prevalent.
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