A few thoughts on software quality which seems to be a topic coming up more frequently these days. The first I'm throwing out there is software quality can be a fairly complex topic so a simple blog post is not going to attempt to do it justice. The next thought is software quality means different things to different businesses or organizations. The expectations of the space shuttle crew of their software is different from the folks who need an internal web page to track office supplies. Although it may seem like the folks who need the web page are in fact launching a space shuttle, that is not the case and the same rigor cannot and should not be applied.
Two areas in particular that I'm ranting a bit about are SOA and Agile(as in the development methodology). I read this post over at CIO.com on the issues that SOA and Agile bring out when it comes to software quality. I'm going to answer the question it's posing up front - no SOA and Agile do not lead to crappy business agility. I think most would agree that have had successful practices established around SOA or used the Agile development methodology correctly that the end result are more agile applications.
Organizations that skimmed the service of SOA or Agile could have implemented complete disasters for software. Does that make SOA or Agile the culprit? I think not and in fact I think those same organizations would struggle within any architecture or methodology. SOA and Agile don't shed the traditional principals of good software development practices, they simply enhance them to insure business needs are met in a timely manner. Like any architecture or development methodology if implemented incorrectly SOA or Agile can lead to bad results. If you have any thoughts on why SOA or Agile in particular lead to poor quality software, I'm all ears.