When people ask me why can computers double their speed every 18 months but software just creeps along? i tell them that making computers is like making bicycles but making software is like making the people that ride the bicycles.

/begin ramble/

The purpose of software is to implement a logically designed (ipso facto consistent) system. Sounds easy, but as another developer, I believe that there are a lot of reasons it is hard in reality.

Of the system, not only will different people have different perceptions of what the system is supposed to do, but the same person will have different perceptions over time. Thus a software project is already shooting at a moving target. The target is moving at a rate proportional to the number of people with influence on the outcome.

This is exascerbated by the fact that human language is ambigous. You say x, I hear x prime and the guy next to me hears y. (This is one reason why a one-person project has an advantage.)

The business environment changes at what seems like an increasing rate, and it requires changes to the software. We need to have IM. We need to have business partnerships. We need to have social networking. We need GPS, video, earth mapping, voice activated streaming podcast cell phone controlled HEPA DRM SOX ISO9000 complient deregulated secure from cyberattack software can you tell us how long it will take?

The system is rarely defined completely before the building begins, it just isn't practical. However, this is less of a problem if a fair amount of time is spent at the beginning gathering user needs and forming from them a good logical model as a core on which to begin building. The better the core understanding the better the outcome, but you still have to go through that shifting target phase, and there it can get hard keeping things straight.

Then there are the development tools. They are relatively complex to begin with, and they themselves are a shifting item. These probably shift less since they are themselves software, but shift they do, and that contributes.

Then there is the technology. What can I say, I feel like a broken record, it is hard and changing.

I won't even go into the people, but there is another hard component.

Personally I am surprised when I see some well-thought out piece of software that does it's job well and is easy to use. Considering how hard it is to get there, that always blows me away.

/end ramble/

proves once again that sanity is not a requirement to post on Salon.

that the Baghdad operation was supposed to have started Monday but didn't. "It's probably going to slip a few days". What he didn't say is the delay is because people in this administration couldn't grab their ass with both hands.

This is just too funny. Not the video, it was sadly pathetic. But the idea of something this lame being put on television as if it was entertaining, now THAT is funny!

if your proposition follows from both A and NOT A, then in fact your proposition is not related to either A or NOT A. I.E., their claim that we are doing well in Iraq is completely unrelated to the levels of the insurgency, and only follow from what the 'victory' imbeciles already believe.

I disagree that an academic group must allow members to say anything they want and cannot take action against someone they disagree with.

Any group has the right to define itself, it's goals, ideals, and what it allows it's member to do. Without a definition there is no distinction and hence no group. A group that cannot take action against members is in fact no group at all, just a random collection of individuals with no distinguishing characteristic. When a group defines itself it by definition also defines what it is not. If a group cannot eject 'what it is not' then it is no group.

My right-to-speak motto is 'Fools should be allowed to speak so that their foolishness can be known', but this doesn't mean that they can say what they want in any context that they want. Any context that finds their ideas incompatible has a right to eject them to speak their foolishness elsewhere.

As for whether academia is a context that has a right to this ejection is a matter of opinion, clearly mine differs from Glenns.

Get over what? I for one don't want another Bush, even if she is named Clinton, in the White House.

She refuses to acknowledge she was wrong.

Her conceit is so great she thinks campaign money should be returned because someone critized her. Did geffin commit mass murder? Child molestation? Bribe elected officials? No, just criticized Hillary, and she tells Obama he should return the money.

How do you spell hubris? Thanks but no thanks, this issue reveals the true Hillary, I'll pass.

My God is the real God.

Your god and his followers are trash and we can kill them.

/insert religion here/

In the digital age, everything is backed up somewhere. Just need to run that down.