[a3voices]

It's mostly based on the skill and experience of the developer. Of course there is probably some asymptote in the quality and delivery time that is impossible to surpass, like the 3 minute mile. Human brains are not without limits and we didn't evolve to write software.

[davidw]

It's not at all about developer skill. It's about methods and process.

Ok, you don't want to have a bunch of total bozo developers, or the time to get anything useful done will stretch out to infinity, but still, it's not about just 'being good'.

[huherto]

In my own experience. It is about skills. But if you don't have the skills you need more methods and process. The less skilled is your team, the more processes you need.

[davidw]

I think that's going down the wrong path: you can get "pretty good" software if you get the best people and just let them work on it. But it'll still have bugs. You need more process and stuff like verifiable software and all that kind of overhead to really start getting close to bug free.

[a3voices]

Well that's part of it. You need to have the experience to know which methods and processes give you the most value and quality for the time invested. There's many skill sets involved and knowing good processes is just one.