
Software Is Hard - nickb
http://www.gamearchitect.net/Articles/SoftwareIsHard.html
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alex_c
I found this quote interesting:

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I believe that the following statement is an axiom of software development:

It is impossible, by examining any significant piece of completed code, to
determine within a factor of two how many man-hours it took to produce that
code.

And the corollary:

If you can't tell how long a piece of code would take when you have the
finished product available, what chance do you think you have before the first
line of code is written?

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jadams
Actually software is so much easier than any other kind of physical
engineering, that ridiculously small and inexperienced teams try to solve
fiendishly complex problems. That's what makes it hard.

~~~
bootload
_"... Actually software is so much easier than any other kind of physical
engineering ..."_

Not so. While the construction of things is hard. It is backed up with
hundreds of years of engineering experience, thousands in hacking. This has
allowed engineers to design with both the confidence of theory and some
understanding of tolerance,

Despite being just over 50 years old, Software is not yet an engineering
discipline. There is no tolerance for error ~
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparing_software_engineering_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparing_software_engineering_and_related_fields)

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mechanical_fish
I love this sentence:

"Talking about a software development schedule more than a year out is like
talking about where we go after we die."

~~~
henryw
"Hofstadter's Law: 'It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
into account Hofstadter's law.'"

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michaelneale
The first thing that struck me is that this visually looked like
joelonsoftware.com - is there some template that people use or something ? It
even has the same sort of links on the left hand side.

