Software quality is a broad topic.  I will add future posts about software quality, but I will start with this quote from Barbara Tuchman, a historian.  Her definition of quality certainly applies to computer programming.

“Quality, As I understand it, means investment of the best skill and effort possible to produce the finest and most admirable result possible. Its presence or absence in some degree characterizes every man-man object, service, skilled or unskilled labor -- laying bricks, painting a picture, ironing shirts, practicing medicine, shoemaking, scholarship, writing a book. You do it well or you do it half-well. Materials are sound and durable or they are sleazy; method is painstaking or whatever is easiest. Quality is achieving or reaching for the highest standard as against being satisfied with the sloppy or fraudulent. It is honesty of purpose as against catering to cheap or sensational sentiment. It does not allow compromise with the second-rate.”

"The Decline of Quality," by Barbara Tuchman, Historian

New York Times, November 2, 1980