On 6/16/2012 8:26 AM, Guillaume Chatelet wrote:
And then we wonder why software is
notorious for being delivered late and full of bugs, while other
engineers routinely deliver finished bridges, automobiles, electrical
appliances, etc., on time and with only minor defects.
I have a nit to pick with that statement, as a former mechanical engineer who
has done professional mechanical designs and has taken apart a lot of others.
Bridges, automobiles, electrical appliances, etc., are full of design errors.
The engineers who design them aren't any smarter, more professional, or rely on
mathematical precision any more than software engineers do. In fact, quite a
large fraction of them can do math little more advanced than simple arithmetic.
They don't catastrophically fail that often simply because they are way, way
overdesigned. A bridge, for example, can withstand several times its design
load. That covers an awful lot of sins. Software, on the other hand, can
catastrophically fail with the slightest mistake - a single bit being off.
The "on time" is equally misinformed. The more new design there is in other
engineering projects, the more certain it is to be late.
