> Commercial software engineering is a creative endeavor; it is not a science, nor is it a manufacturing process
Exactly. And it's less like movie production and more like 4,000 people trying to collaborate to produce a million-page novel.
It does bear some resemblance to design and engineering, but with custom materials and components that have never been used before and need to be created specifically for the project.
Generally, analogies to software engineering are not helpful.
Certainly, software engineering may be a little like problem domain A, B and C but probably less so than we think. After all, how acute is our knowledge of these problem domains to begin with?
I mean, considering how much code, especially scripting and pipeline work, is required to produce most modern movies, these days most movies are programming projects in one way or another.
Hm. Every action movie is different, but similar. Every apartment complex is different, but similar. Every webshop is different, but similar.
Yes, usually if you have a bad scene it rarely matters, if you have a lot of amazing ones too. And amazing actors, and editing, and ... Similarly, if you build a nice condo, if one face of it looks bad from the street, but the internal spacing of the units are great, then it's still a success. And if your checkout page is shit, but you have amazing search, good prices, great quality products, then your shop is generally great.
Of course this makes it sound like engineering, or a specific profession (like that of plumbing, HVAC, electrician tradespeople). It's always never an end in itself. It's complex like a bridge or a dam, sure, but without looking at the big picture (traffic, environment, costs, environment, etc..) it cannot be really evaluated. Even safety eval requires assumption (100 year floods, wind loads, min max temperature, max. traffic load, max ship height under the bridge, max electricity load).
And there are patterns, architectures, frameworks. (Like building codes.) There are audits (pentests, like the collision tests for new cars, or synthetic load testing for new sites).
The big difference is that usually movies are done in a few years. Scope change rarely affects bridges. After the basic outline of the dam is checked for basic structural sanity, it's done. After a condo master plan is approved the changes are minimal (because there have been many lives lost due to deviations from the plans).
Exactly. And it's less like movie production and more like 4,000 people trying to collaborate to produce a million-page novel.
It does bear some resemblance to design and engineering, but with custom materials and components that have never been used before and need to be created specifically for the project.