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We, as CS people, think computers are easy. However, for other disciplines, computers are not easy. We can try to (and do) create tools, but it's not as simple

We, as CS people, think computers are easy. However, for other disciplines, computers are not easy. We can try to (and do) create tools, but it's not as simple as a table editor or a simple CRUD application. Scenarios has many peculiarities and edge cases.

mnw21cam 3y ago
A fair proportion of CS is precisely oriented around the fact that computers are not easy in ways that non-CS people don't realise, and provides methods for quantifying and trying to cope with that. I refer you to https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/
- mnau 3y ago
  I think the reason why first two examples can say that they are safe is that in case of failure, people die. And thus there was a regulation introduced. People generally care when they can die. In case of software, rather rarely people die and when software is being done on something human critical (a friend of mine works on pacemakers), there a great deal of care being done. So basically it's a wide range from DIY using a cheap wrench to person rotating a torque calibrated wrench on a rocket. Because just like the hammer, there is a wide range of use cases, some critical (e.g. pacemaker), some mundane (e.g. ecommerce). Planes and elevators always have a risk of crashing and killing humans. And it did. Software doesn't.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
> We, as CS people, think computers are easy. I'd say we have a better understanding of which parts are necessarily / accidentally / capriciously / deceptively hard. And it's certainly subjective. E.g., Python's dynamism (typing, etc.) really trips me up, but others feel the same about strong static typing.
- Loranubi 3y ago
  You should clarify that Python is strongly typed as well.