Anybody could afford to bring a personal computer home, free from the oversight and advice of more experienced programmers and the methodology of an engineering company, and start programming on their own. And they did just that, in large numbers, learning nothing from the past and reinventing everything, over and over. Both literally and figuratively, we never looked back. Independent software companies thrived while the software divisions of hardware companies shrank, so that the modern software industry was created by people who had never been exposed to engineering rigor.
— Adam Barr, The Problem With Software
PREVIOUS10/08/2026