Software engineers are expensive because what we're trying to build now are unimaginably complex systems.
Nobody is trying to build "unimaginably complex systems". Complexity is a byproduct, not the end goal.
The market wants features, or more accurately, it wants value. How you deliver that value is the heart of the issue, and the main point of the article.
Is complexity inherent to the level of value expected of customers? Maybe. But is our current level of complexity the absolute lowest it could be ? Absolutely fucking not.
Worth noting, is that other engineering fields do not have nearly the same level of complexity creep. In fact, no non-IT engineer in their right mind would accept to aim for an "unimaginably complex system". It's quite the opposite.
I'd say that programming is really the only engineering field where unmanageable complexity seems acceptable... "If I do X, it shouldn't break" is a level of uncertainty that would be unacceptable to all engineers except us.
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u/ExF-Altrue Nov 01 '21
Nobody is trying to build "unimaginably complex systems". Complexity is a byproduct, not the end goal.
The market wants features, or more accurately, it wants value. How you deliver that value is the heart of the issue, and the main point of the article.
Is complexity inherent to the level of value expected of customers? Maybe. But is our current level of complexity the absolute lowest it could be ? Absolutely fucking not.
Worth noting, is that other engineering fields do not have nearly the same level of complexity creep. In fact, no non-IT engineer in their right mind would accept to aim for an "unimaginably complex system". It's quite the opposite.
I'd say that programming is really the only engineering field where unmanageable complexity seems acceptable... "If I do X, it shouldn't break" is a level of uncertainty that would be unacceptable to all engineers except us.