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From: bnfb@geocub.greco-prog.fr (Freeman Benson)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Software is not Hardware
Message-ID: <197@geocub.greco-prog.fr>
Date: 6 Jul 90 08:24:06 GMT
Organization: University of Nantes
Lines: 14

Software is not hardware---the chip/board analogy only goes so far.  
But why?  Mr. Stroustrup pointed out one reason: striving for the best.
A similar reason is that the problem is software DESIGN, not manufacturing.
Design is still hard, software or hardware, because it is a mental
activity.  Hardware companies where I have worked took a long time to
design their products, just as the software companies took a long time
to write their software.  Sure, some designs are well known, but then so
are some programs: the database 4GLs come to mind.  They key is that,
with or without object-oriented languages, with or without code libraries,
with or without tools, the problem of design is hard.  Yes, certain tools help,
but only for well-understood problems---in other words, making clones is easy.
But we knew that.

Bjorn N. Freeman-Benson