3 ms·
Yes all large projects have risks, however it's ridiculous to say there's nothing unique about software. How often does a nail in one corner of a building beco
by dasil003 4y ago
Yes all large projects have risks, however it's ridiculous to say there's nothing unique about software. How often does a nail in one corner of a building become a dependency for a bunch of elements clear on the other side? How often does a dog house have to scale to a skyscraper because more people suddenly want to use it? How often do materials and laws of physics change in the real world? How often can you not get a clear answer on whether a specific requirement is necessary?
Software is arbitrary logic which many stakeholders expect to be magic. It's not the same as any kind of construction project.
- ejb999 4y ago>>How often does a nail in one corner of a building become a dependency for a bunch of elements clear on the other side? Thats like asking 'how does naming my local variable X instead of Y have any dependency on code in other functions? and assuming that summarizes the complexity of writing code. I take it you have never built a large custom house from scratch.
- dasil003 4y agoSeriously? Is this the nit you're going to pick on to argue my thesis? Yes, I have been privy to the pain of custom home builds and remodels. The difference is, when someone says "oh damn the plumbing isn't working as well as we would like", when the contractor says that's not feasible to fix without gutting the house back to studs at the cost of hundreds of thousands, people understand that intuitively. They don't say "can't you just drill some holes and run some new pipes diagonally through the living space". Software is malleable, opaque, and ever-changing. Construction and maintenance costs of physical infrastructure can be explained in a way that a reasonable lay person can understand. That is not true of software at scale.