An Airbus A380 comprises about 4 million parts yet can be certified and operated within a safety margin.
Not that I think lines of code are equivalent to airplane parts, but we have to quantify complexity some way and you decided to use lines of code in your comment so I’m just continuing with that.
The reality is that we’re still just super early in the engineering discipline of software development. That shows up in poor abstractions (e.g. what is the correct way to measure software complexity), and it shows up in unwillingness of developers to submit themselves to standard abstractions and repeatable processes.
Everyone wants to write their own custom code at whatever level in the stack they think appropriate. This is equivalent to the days when every bridge or machine was hand-made with custom fasteners and locally sourced variable materials. Bridges and machines were less reliable back then too.
Every reliably engineered thing we can think of—bridges, airplanes, buildings, etc.—went through long periods of time when anyone could and would just slap one together in whatever innovative, fast, cheap way they wanted to try. Reliability was low, but so was accountability, and it was fast and fun. Software is largely still in that stage globally. I bet it won’t be like that forever though.
Not that I think lines of code are equivalent to airplane parts, but we have to quantify complexity some way and you decided to use lines of code in your comment so I’m just continuing with that.
The reality is that we’re still just super early in the engineering discipline of software development. That shows up in poor abstractions (e.g. what is the correct way to measure software complexity), and it shows up in unwillingness of developers to submit themselves to standard abstractions and repeatable processes.
Everyone wants to write their own custom code at whatever level in the stack they think appropriate. This is equivalent to the days when every bridge or machine was hand-made with custom fasteners and locally sourced variable materials. Bridges and machines were less reliable back then too.
Every reliably engineered thing we can think of—bridges, airplanes, buildings, etc.—went through long periods of time when anyone could and would just slap one together in whatever innovative, fast, cheap way they wanted to try. Reliability was low, but so was accountability, and it was fast and fun. Software is largely still in that stage globally. I bet it won’t be like that forever though.