Steve Reeves: Software engineers need to take hard look at their profession

Decision makers need to come to terms with the hard realities of software development. Software development is not a field comprised of well-defined problems and stable environments. You simply can not bring scientific or mathematical rigor to a field where A) software can encompass any conceivable idea or concept that exists in the entirety of human knowledge, and B) specifications for every single project are different, and can almost never be firmly agreed upon before work begins even with the foremost world experts involved.

Imagine trying to develop engineering practices if there were infinite different realities each with their own bizarrely unique laws of physics. What about building a medical knowledge database if every generation of humans was built from a completely new DNA sequence.

Without some groundbreaking advancements like true AI there is not much hope of the situation for huge projects improving across the board. I believe large projects can succeed with the right leadership, but not adhering to the same formal set of procedures across the board.