

The World is Not Ready for Software - lylejohnson
http://jpkutner.blogspot.com/2011/01/world-is-not-ready-for-software.html

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mtrn
Summary: Software has no glitches, they are just there (and users are
accustomed to them) because the process and the organisation around the
software is not sane.

I share the pessimism - I've seen such things even in the smaller scale.

CS grads come to the interview (for a thesis) and say, well I'll design the
system and write a spec, but I won't touch code (meaning I don't know what,
maybe 'I'm no idiot' or the like).

I saw a PhD design a knowledge representation system and asking me (no PhD)
where is the button in eclipse to run the code - ten lines of an API example
from the docs (give me teh codez, eh?).

And I just learned that the official software development model for Germany's
federal institutions is a modified V-model: I counted around 30-40 steps
(excluding the artifacts) and just one read: "Coding the system". I laughed
from the heart. Now imagine replacing this step with "Go for a walk" and the
whole project, well, what would it be? Failed? Incomplete? I don't know.

In short: Organisations, as Nietzsche put it, are much more childish and
immature as individuals. (Corporate) software development as a relatively new
engineering discipline will have long years of struggle to come. Keep your
heads up (and sane)!

