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 as an engineering discipline

[danlash]

I wrote about this subject recently as well. I agree that programming is hard, and programming for other people is even harder. I also agree that programming is _not_ an engineering field ... yet. As a professional programmer, I believe that we can and are advancing the state of the art in computer science, so that one day my electrical engineer buddy will be able to say "hey, that last application you wrote was a marvel of engineering." One day my friends ... one day.

My article explains it a little better.

"Engineering is the application of math and science to create something of value from our natural resources." quote from