OT: Software development as mass-production. Was Re: How to identify a website's scale?

Roedy Green wrote:
On Wed, 07 May 2008 21:53:06 -0400, Lew <lew@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the time allotted for development.

Given that, you'd think large corporations would simply not put up
with "violin-making" style low level languages where every line is
lovingly crafted character by character.

You'd think the would demand the same brutal mass production applied
to goods.

Don't they?

I expect that no software developers are involved in the manufacturing of shrink-wrapped boxes of MS Word. I bet that all happens in some mass-production factory in China.

I'd bet most software development is more analogous to something between bespoke violin manufacturing and whatever the designers and prototype-building craftsmen do at IKEA's design offices - not at all like whatever the people/robots do in IKEA factories.

Just my 人民币 0.02 worth.

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