If your life really depended on the ok outcome of the nxt program you wrote, you would make SURE it worked. You test, re-test, try alternatives and compare outc

If your life really depended on the ok outcome of the nxt program you wrote, you would make SURE it worked. You test, re-test, try alternatives and compare outcomes, run experiments about what happens under certain conditions. Then you take the level you've tested it at and release it saying that your system is capable of 1/10 what you tested it at. The application of the scientific method to the act of building stuff so that you really know the outcome, at least within known bounds of uncertainty - thats engineering. I'm sure this kind of work does go on throughout the world, but not in 95% of the software that gets written. Just like how engineers aren't involved in 95% of construction jobs, except when writing some guidelines 20 years ago. Most programmers are plumbers and brickmakers building houses, not engineers designing skyscrapers. "When Roman engineers built a bridge, they had to stand under it while the first legion marched across. If programmers today worked under similar ground rules, they might well find themselves getting much more interested in Ada !" — Robert Dewar, President Ada Core Technologies.