> software [is] an order of magnitude more complex to reason about than e.g. a bridge I think you're trying to flatter our profession. Software is not more com

> software [is] an order of magnitude more complex to reason about than e.g. a bridge I think you're trying to flatter our profession. Software is not more complex; it's just that we don't know what we're doing well enough to have useable, reliable components. Like arches. Or even just rivets. To stretch the bridge analogy further (probably almost to its breaking point), it's as if I'm about to start work on the Hoover Dam Bridge, but I have to start by getting some rivets. So I first go out and pick up some pieces of iron ore, and start trying to figure out how to build a smelter that can introduce just the right amount of carbon into them to make decent steel. Knowing a bit about smelter designs, I decide to use a Japanese tatara furnace. I still don't have rivets, but I figure that in a few weeks I'll have enough steel to start making them. (After I make the buy-or-build-build decision on the furnace, that is. I'm not allowed to reuse the one I made for my last project of building music stands, and the commonly-used open-source design has been known to mysteriously turn iron ore into lead instead.) The rest of the bridge has yet to be tackled... Point being: this is not a "we know enough, it's just complicated" problem. We know almost nothing and our tools are appallingly primitive. To quote some classic hacker humor: "I was taught assembler / In my second year of school / It's kinda like construction work / With a toothpick for a tool." Assembler and Haskell have much more in common than a toothpick and a Caterpillar D9.