Re^12: "Practices and Principles" to death

The distinction missing here is the relative ages of the two professions under consideration.

That's one distinction. Another distinction is that software is a virtual product, not even patterns of electricity. If there's a manufacturing step at all, it's running the software through the compiler.

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Re^13: "Practices and Principles" to death by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Mar 05, 2008 at 03:17 UTC
The entire manufacturing process for software is in producing the blueprint. We're not engineers, we're architects. Or, at the very least, blueprint artists. Pretty soon, we'll be building houses the same way, using 3-D fabbers. That'll be really cool. Screw up the program? Rip it down and start over. If the right materials are used, you could even recycle that. The only costs are energy and time. My criteria for good software: Does it work? Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?	[reply]

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Re^13: "Practices and Principles" to death
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Mar 05, 2008 at 03:17 UTC

Pretty soon, we'll be building houses the same way, using 3-D fabbers. That'll be really cool. Screw up the program? Rip it down and start over. If the right materials are used, you could even recycle that. The only costs are energy and time.

My criteria for good software:

Does it work?
Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

[reply]