Ask HN: What is the Holy Grail for Software Engineering?

Physics has its Theory of Everything - what's out there for Software Engineering?

The Holy Grail of software engineering — the one true approach to building software systems that can be applied, universally, to any and all software projects.

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~se4921/PDF/CACM/p15-glass.pdf

Holy grail, eh? Well, if you really want to swing for the fences...

* Programming a computer in plain English.

* Teaching a machine to compose (real) music, or draw (real) art.

* Simulating a brain -- or, even better, emulating one.

* A programming language that makes it possible to write code that's worthy of being read as literature.

Enterprise software perspective - IT managed directly by business users. In that, the system can accept natural language descriptions of business logic, resolve ambiguity, and can self-modify, maintain, and heal itself. In other words, a virtual software architect.

Building software like we build bridges.

There are a lot of things wrong with this analogy, but I think it still encapsulates a nice ideal. We'd like to get it right the first time, and make it last with minimal maintenance.

(This is for software engineering, not computer science)