I know this is tongue in cheek, but I think it's instructive to look at different "development" disciplines and see both why they're different and see what we c

I know this is tongue in cheek, but I think it's instructive to look at different "development" disciplines and see both why they're different and see what we can learn from them. For example, in genetic engineering, given the constraint that the debug/test cycle is lifetimes, they use different approaches: 1. Plan, model and simulate 2. Use living models that have fast lifetimes (bacteria, fruit flies, etc.) 3. Use results from #2 to improve #1 and continue to tighten the feedback loop. In traditional engineering, there's groups that do nothing but test the stress points of different materials, subtract out a safety margin and put that into design databases so when you build a bridge, you know exactly how much steel to buy to make sure it doesn't fall down. and so on. It's also instructive for other engineering disciplines to learn from software (and why it's very different). Lots of traditional engineering disciplines look down on software engineering because, from the outside it looks a lot like beta-testing in the wild. But part of building software is doing so and providing working software!