To see how software development could be made less bug-prone, all you have to do is look at a more mature industry. Take home-building for example.
First of all, homes are build from standard components. Lots of standard components. If software development, if you want a linked list, you have, at most, a handful of choices. When building a home, if you want a nail, you have dozens or hundreds of choices. There are roofing nails, framing nails, finish nails, decking nails, galvanized nails, nails with ribs, nails with spiral grooves and all available in a variety of sizes.
The point is, if you need a nail, you can walk into home depot and get *exactly* the nail that you want. In software, you have to make do with what's available.
You could argue that one can create whatever custom list behavior is needed from the building blocks available. That's true. You can also make whatever nail you want from steal wire. But we don't do that because it's error prone and you might not get exactly the right kind of nail necessary for the job. It's better to get one off the shelf because you can be pretty sure that someone has thought of all the issues related to the problem it's designed to solve and taken care of them.
Next, look at who builds a home and compare it to who builds software. If we build houses the way we build software, you'd bring 150 people to the job site and say "you there, do the framing; you over there, you're on plumbing; you two in the back have electrical work. After all, builders are builders, right? Of course not. There are specialized skills involved in each step and you need the expertise to do them. You wouldn't want your plumber doing the roof work any more than you'd want an excavator doing the plumbing. To build a complex system, you need lots of people with very specific skills.
Standards and interfaces. So how is it that you can walk into Sears and buy a blender that interfaces so perfectly with the electricity in your house? Because there are standards, of course. The standards specify the voltage and frequency on the line, the exact shape of the plug that you use, how long the cord should be, what sort of insulation it has and probably a lot of other stuff. Software systems need the same sort of standardized interfaces for their basic properties. We've started this with things like constructors, destructors and I/O operators.
Basically, I see software development as a very young science. As the standards evolve, the quality and reliability will grow also.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, homes are build from standard components. Lots of standard components. If software development, if you want a linked list, you have, at most, a handful of choices. When building a home, if you want a nail, you have dozens or hundreds of choices. There are roofing nails, framing nails, finish nails, decking nails, galvanized nails, nails with ribs, nails with spiral grooves and all available in a variety of sizes.
The point is, if you need a nail, you can walk into home depot and get *exactly* the nail that you want. In software, you have to make do with what's available.
You could argue that one can create whatever custom list behavior is needed from the building blocks available. That's true. You can also make whatever nail you want from steal wire. But we don't do that because it's error prone and you might not get exactly the right kind of nail necessary for the job. It's better to get one off the shelf because you can be pretty sure that someone has thought of all the issues related to the problem it's designed to solve and taken care of them.
Next, look at who builds a home and compare it to who builds software. If we build houses the way we build software, you'd bring 150 people to the job site and say "you there, do the framing; you over there, you're on plumbing; you two in the back have electrical work. After all, builders are builders, right? Of course not. There are specialized skills involved in each step and you need the expertise to do them. You wouldn't want your plumber doing the roof work any more than you'd want an excavator doing the plumbing. To build a complex system, you need lots of people with very specific skills.
Standards and interfaces. So how is it that you can walk into Sears and buy a blender that interfaces so perfectly with the electricity in your house? Because there are standards, of course. The standards specify the voltage and frequency on the line, the exact shape of the plug that you use, how long the cord should be, what sort of insulation it has and probably a lot of other stuff. Software systems need the same sort of standardized interfaces for their basic properties. We've started this with things like constructors, destructors and I/O operators.
Basically, I see software development as a very young science. As the standards evolve, the quality and reliability will grow also.