“Software are Made by People” is a category given to posts about how us, with all our shortcomings, can make good software. Software writing relies heavily on the human brain creativity. Where mathematics, Physics or Biology could be considered as pretty solid science, making software is a very soft science in comparison. Which makes a lot of people call it craft. I won’t call it craft myself as I feel it is a term that tries too awkwardly to create a certain elitism about software development. My take is that elitism is the wrong approach to software as even the best of us are average at making software. Every software has its bugs, shortcomings and limitations, and no doubts an intelligent machine would do tenfolds better. But here we are, at the moment software is made by people. When making software, we are left alone with our cognitive capacity, experiences, and social skills. And in all these subjects, even after 60 years of making software, the margin to do better is still really big, which makes our job sometimes frustrating but also incredibly fun.
Matthieu Scholler 03 February 2013