Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty
by neltnerb on Monday November 11, 2013 @09:44PM
(#6715535)
As someone who is an actual systems engineer, and competent in fields including both programming and physical, the point isn't difficulty but iteration cost. It costs next to nothing to push a modification to software. Worst case, it fails, and as long as you are careful with testing things will probably be fine.
Anything in the real world both incurs significant logistical cost as well as many points of unpredictable failure. I've seen thermocouples rated to 1100C catch fire when they hit 600C. Designing a new part for a new idea for a mechanical subsystem can take weeks to make, cost $1000+ easily, and might not work due to very easy to make errors.
So maybe the way to say it is that the abstraction barriers put around non-software parts of a system make them appear less complex, but what we're really saying is that the complexity inside of the box that we're dealing with is smaller.
Anything in the real world both incurs significant logistical cost as well as many points of unpredictable failure. I've seen thermocouples rated to 1100C catch fire when they hit 600C. Designing a new part for a new idea for a mechanical subsystem can take weeks to make, cost $1000+ easily, and might not work due to very easy to make errors.
So maybe the way to say it is that the abstraction barriers put around non-software parts of a system make them appear less complex, but what we're really saying is that the complexity inside of the box that we're dealing with is smaller.