Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: A Cynic's Guide, part 1
Message-ID: <35104UH2@PSUVM>
Date: 4 Mar 88 21:03:36 GMT
References: <2541@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: Penn Sate Erie--School of Business
Lines: 13

In article <2541@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>, neff@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Randy Neff) says:
>
>Why the big difference?   Both hardware and software are working instantiations
>of behavior as described by requirements and specifications.  There is the
>obvious difference in the scale of the projects:  designing and implementing
>a RISC chip is a lot simpler than designing and implementing a compiler for
>it or (gasp) a new operating system for it.  Why can hardware engineers do
>their job so well and software engineers talk about the (huge) percentage
>lifecycle cost in the maintenance phase?
>

A cynical answer:  Since hardware engineers usually get to do their
work first, they do it in ways that make it easier for them and harder
for the software engineers who follow.