Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty

Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by com2kid on Monday November 11, 2013 @08:47PM (#6715334)

Hardware is easy because it is bounded by physical constraints of reality, whereas software has unlimited complexity bounded only by the number of hours of coding put in.

Hardware is hard because one must work within the constraints of reality, software is easy because almost anything imaginable is possible.

Both are fair viewpoints.

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Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by alok-g on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @02:00AM (#6716290)

Just that I am not sure if either one is correct.

Hardware design (in HDLs for example) is very much like software development. There may be a very large number of lines of code (resulting in a very large number of transistors on the chip). Just like a language like C++ that can have many intricacies, the hardware can have many issues that are sometimes hard to nail down during design and simulation.

When thinking that anything imaginable is possible in software while comparing it to hardware, you must keep in mind that the software is ultimately running on the hardware. Anything imaginable is possible still.

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Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by pwnna on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @02:11AM (#6716312)

The hardware here is more referring to tangible, physical things rather than computer hardware.

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Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by pwnna on Monday November 11, 2013 @08:55PM (#6715367)

I think this is the best summary I've heard over software vs traditional engineering to date.

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