"Nobody knows how to build really complicated hardware systems, so designing hardware tends to be simpler. Software is much more complicated."
For those of you who, like me, have wondered how processors and other complex hardware are so reliable, while software is disgraceful, he's probably got the answer.
"Sometimes I think that the goals people are trying to reach are just too much to ask for. Programmers often lose sight of the fact that the problems in building software systems arise because what they are trying to do is just too hard. They believe the computer is a universal engine that can do anything. It’s very easy to be seduced into the proposition that a group of one or five or ten or fifty or a thousand programmers can make the computer do anything. That’s clearly not right."
For those of you who, like me, have wondered how processors and other complex hardware are so reliable, while software is disgraceful, he's probably got the answer.
"Sometimes I think that the goals people are trying to reach are just too much to ask for. Programmers often lose sight of the fact that the problems in building software systems arise because what they are trying to do is just too hard. They believe the computer is a universal engine that can do anything. It’s very easy to be seduced into the proposition that a group of one or five or ten or fifty or a thousand programmers can make the computer do anything. That’s clearly not right."
Interesting...