Someone asked me the other day why the need for software industrialization and to give an example of whats wrong.  Here is one trivial example.  I have a new washing machine that is run by software.  Fully programmable!  The user interface is interesting, but that is another topic of discussion.  Here is the problem, once it is all finished it beeps at me every minute with three beeps.  It seems that I need to actually hit a button to say that machine, you are all done.  Ridiculous!

 

So I decided to see if I wait long enough, it will just shut off by itself.  So I let it go for an hour listening to its 3 beeps every minute for an hour.  Thats 180 beeps.  OK, maybe I aint so bright, but I just about took my sledge hammer to the thing to shut it up.

 

I looked in the owners manual to see if this is normal behavior.  First of all the owners manual is 27 pages!  Its a washer, how complicated can it be?  Next under a section called Acoustic Signal was the magic key combination to turn the sound off.  Of course, would have never guessed this without reading the manual.

 

And thats the point of why software industrialization, its a frickin washing machine!  How many millions of washing machines have been designed and produced over the years and I still need to read a manual for one?  Why cant there be just one button that says Start or Go!  Thats a feature I want in my next washing machine, but it seems its going to take a software revolution to get this one feature.

 

Oh, by the way, my stove timer does the same thing it does not automatically turn off, I actually have to go over and click cancel (with my finger) or it beeps three times every minute.  Now where did I put my sledgehammer