[comp.software-eng] thoughts to ponder

rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S D'Ippolito) (05/18/89)

In article <4273@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> heberlei@iris.ucdavis.edu (Todd) writes:

>------------------- some thought to ponder on -----------------------
>
>* We have been building bridges for a lot longer than we have been
>programming computers.  Programming/SE is a trade in its infancy; maybe
>after a few thousand years we will be doing things correctly the first
>time.

Right -- but we have not been building programming them any longer than we
have been programming them!  Remember, they pre-date the transistor, and
were entirely new types of machines.  Think of the improvements in the
machines and the totally new technologies that were invented to make them.
Who will claim that the software has anywhere the correctness and
reliability of the hardware, or that the same orders of magnitude in
improvements have been made?


Rich
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ideas have consequences.                                    RSD@sei.cmu.edu
Richard Weaver
---------------------------------------------------------------------------