> Isn't this what many reasonably run companies do anyway?
I love how the most basic of practices in any engineering field is depicted as a groundbreaking epiphany in the software industry.
I love how the most basic of practices in any engineering field is depicted as a groundbreaking epiphany in the software industry.
The software engineering environment is special because when it started out, everyone thought of it as just another branch of engineering, so they applied standard industrial processes onto it - and that did not work well, what worked for building hydraulic presses did not translate well to writing software. SE needed to "learn" how to tinker and experiment on mid-sized projects first, and now they are in an early-industrial-age phase (and call it 'agile').
Eventually, SE will return to something more organized, something more reliable - after all, we are learning that bad design choices can be lethal. We are seeing the first steps today, trying to capture agility with frameworks, with dedicated test methodologies, ... Naturally, this will cause frustration with the tinkerers, and it will take time. And while some aspects will resemble mechanical engineering processes, some things will be completely new and untranslatable to other engineering disciplines.
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brad-Cox-2/publication/...
The OP is just content marketing for some proofreading software. No one actually thinks this stuff is an epiphany unless they are completely unfamiliar with the history of the field.
With hardware (be it a bridge, a car, a pair of jeans) customers know and accept that no modification is possible once the product is accepted. With software, customers have grown acquainted to the reality that software will evolve to fit their changing needs. Later, this became hoping for a software that can anticipate their needs. Finally, it perversely morphed into expecting a software that precede them being aware of their own needs.