Why Software is Hard

GoCanes writes "Salon's Scott Rosenberg explains why even small-scale programming projects can take years to complete, one programmer is often better than two, and the meaning of 'Rosenberg's Law.' After almost 50 years, the state of the art is still pretty darn bad. His point is that as long as you're trying to do something that has already been done, then you have an adequate frame of reference to estimate how long it will take/cost. But if software is at all interesting, it's because no one else has done it before."

Comments

Programming without cookies

[Allicorn]

Programming websites that let you actually view a page without requiring a cookie is obviously hard for the folks at Salon.

Re:Becuase People don't know what they want!

[cowscows]

I design buildings for a living, and I've dabbled in programming, and I think architecture and software development have a whole lot in common.

Your step one in "building a house" can go through all 6 of the steps that you have listed for software development. We get hired by clients, sometimes they have a good idea what they want, sometimes they don't. Sometimes what they want is feasible, sometimes it isn't. It's not unusual for even smaller projects to drag on for years, because the client keeps changing his/her mind. Many projects that cross our desks will never be built.

Many projects are not the traditional design phase ->building phase. They often overlap, and it's pretty messy.

I could go on for paragraphs with the similarities that I see between software design and architecture, but I'll save that for another post.