Assuring Software Quality By Preventing Neglect

Ethical concern about technology enjoys booming popularity, evident in worry over artificial intelligence, threats to privacy, the digital divide, reliability of research results, and vulnerability of software. Concern over software shows in cybersecurity efforts and professional codes.1 The black hats are hackers who deploy software as a weapon with malicious intent, and the white hats are the organizations that set safeguards against defective products. But we have a gray-hat problem--neglect. My impression is that the criteria under which I used to assess student programs--rigorous thought, design, and testing, clean nested conditions, meaningful variable names, complete case coverage, careful modularization--have been abandoned or weakened.