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Why Software is Hard

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the comedy-and-software-are-in-the-same-club dept.

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."

1 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Software is NOT hard by sgtrock · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    My response to this article on the third page of letters:

    Haven't ANY of you people heard of FLOSS?

    Software development is NOT hard. The closed source development model is. I refer you to a recent study on the economic impact of open source software that was recently published in the EU. The URL is:

    ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20- flossimpact.pdf

    While the entire 287 page report makes for fascinating reading, I'd like to direct your attention in particular to pages 48-53. Read that and tell me that software development is hard. Clearly, it's not when it's managed properly.