Oh yeah, his won't work for all fields. Iterative development is excellent in software because the cost of construction (ie., running the code) is nearly zero. You can let constant feedback from application guide where you are going.
This is why interviewers like to ask about languages that aren't in the corporate playbook. If someone says "Ruby? Python? Lisp? No, I haven't had the opportunity to use any of those yet," you know you can pass. Not because all good programmers use ruby, python, and lisp, but because all good programmers know that you don't need to "have the opportunity", you just need to install the language and write some code.
It would be unconscionable to learn brain surgery this way, so if someone says "I haven't had the opportunity to operate on a brain yet," that's a reasonable statement.
I actually suspect that writing software is one of the most complicated things a person can do. If we didn't have the advantage of iterative development with cheap compile cycles (or run cycles, if you don't compile), then no system of any real complexity could be built.
This is why interviewers like to ask about languages that aren't in the corporate playbook. If someone says "Ruby? Python? Lisp? No, I haven't had the opportunity to use any of those yet," you know you can pass. Not because all good programmers use ruby, python, and lisp, but because all good programmers know that you don't need to "have the opportunity", you just need to install the language and write some code.
It would be unconscionable to learn brain surgery this way, so if someone says "I haven't had the opportunity to operate on a brain yet," that's a reasonable statement.
I actually suspect that writing software is one of the most complicated things a person can do. If we didn't have the advantage of iterative development with cheap compile cycles (or run cycles, if you don't compile), then no system of any real complexity could be built.