[yannickt]

There is a great essay by Jack Reeves making a similar point.

What Is Software Design? http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design.h...

FTA:

There is one consequence of considering code as software design that completely overwhelms all others. It is so important and so obvious that it is a total blind spot for most software organizations. This is the fact that software is cheap to build. It does not qualify as inexpensive; it is so cheap it is almost free. If source code is a software design, then actually building software is done by compilers and linkers.

[someguydave]

But then you could argue that the machine code emitted from the compiler is a design and the actual hardware that implements it is "building the software".

[igravious]

Nobody said that it was an exact analogy. :) All it needs to be is more exact than the previous (good, but not all that good) analogy.

[someguydave]

But then you could argue that the implementing transistor arrangement is a design and the actual movement of electrons that implements it is "building the software"

[TeMPOraL]

What compiler does is equivalent to what a contractor does - building. The machine code emitted from the compiler is the building.