It all comes down to the point you make about there being no widespread absolute consensus on the best way to develop software: our industry moves too fast and

It all comes down to the point you make about there being no widespread absolute consensus on the best way to develop software: our industry moves too fast and contradicts itself too often for institutions and standards to become permanently established. But I suspect, comparatively, we are actually doing much better than more mature fields such as law and medicine (who took hundreds of years from their founding to reach what they have achieved today). Also, maybe law and medicine aren’t that great. Every time I visit my GP these days I’m always struck by how he basically has no idea what is wrong with me. And our legal system seems to be pretty out of date in the light of more recent findings in psychology and changes in society caused by the Internet.