Are IT Developers The 21st Century Art Students?

Remember the old joke that goes: Why don't art students look out of the window before lunch? Because it gives them something to look forward to for the afternoon. I get the distinct feeling that IT developers are hewn from the same piece of rock.

I've recently upgraded to IE7 - I had a message appear on the toolbar of my browser weeks ago telling me I should, so I did - and guess what? Yep that's right, the computer that had worked perfectly for three years has now developed the ability to connect without being asked and not only that if you disable the connection it re-connects when you are in another application.

We've just had an upgrade at the office of our practice management software, the day after installation we lost a database that had been saved and backed-up! There were so many problems with the initial release that you have to load three, count em, patches to make the software run the way Geekboy intended.

One of the IT guys I know has told me not to touch the new Microsoft software for at least two years because it has so many bugs in it.

I have the same, innovation for innovations sake, problem with that software that's named after a herb although it's actually another word for wise - you know think Newcastle. I'm one of the hundred or so people they call when they have a new product to sell, when their most recent update was released I told my account manager at S*G* I honestly couldn't recommend it to anybody because it wasn't worth the price - shortly after our telephone call I received an e-mail from my new account manager telling me her predecessor had been moved internally (I think she meant at HQ, I don't believe that he had experienced a bowel movement due to my dissing his product)

There's an obsession in the IT industry to update and upgrade every year for the sake of appearances, you musn't be seen to be behind the market leaders. The problem is that the 'Computer world' knows that it ignores the basics of supplier/customer dynamics that says if people get pissed off with something constantly not working they'll dump it - people very rarely do that with computers they simply pay for an engineer to fix it.