> I don't think I've seen professional engineers in other fields choose methods which they know will fail under expected stresses simply because it's not considered an important project. There's still a safety factor.
It's not that the project is unimportant so the engineer doesn't care about it, it's that the project's requirements have a certain tolerance for failures. The project dictates that tolerance, not the engineer; the engineer develops and implements a plan that works within the tolerance.
And no, typically there is not a safety factor, which is part of why the tolerance is higher for these projects.
> They build software in exactly the same flimsy way -- just a lot more of it
Again, this is not something determined by the engineers—it's just part of the project requirements the engineers are employed to work from.
I think your gripe is more with something like software product managers than it is with software engineers.
It's not that the project is unimportant so the engineer doesn't care about it, it's that the project's requirements have a certain tolerance for failures. The project dictates that tolerance, not the engineer; the engineer develops and implements a plan that works within the tolerance.
And no, typically there is not a safety factor, which is part of why the tolerance is higher for these projects.
> They build software in exactly the same flimsy way -- just a lot more of it
Again, this is not something determined by the engineers—it's just part of the project requirements the engineers are employed to work from.
I think your gripe is more with something like software product managers than it is with software engineers.