[learc83]

Software is less like mechanical engineering and more like industrial engineering or systems engineering.

Designing an assembly line to build a car vs designing a car.

The difference even with those disciplines is that with code, any specification sufficiently detailed to replicate the product is the product.

An architect can design a blueprint for a house and send it to 3 different builders and they will each build more or less the exact same house.

But if you write a software spec and send it to 3 different software teams, you will get 3 very different products. If you try to write a sufficiently detailed spec to avoid this problem, you'll just end up writing code.

[lomnakkus]

This is not exactly a "response", but as you point out, I failed to point this out in my comment: There is little actual value in (what are you doing here? go outside).

Obviously, I'll elaborate if necessary, but really... do you actually need other people to tell you how to live? (Ding, another achievement realized. No, not really, I just thought it would be funny.)

EDIT: For a more comprehensive treatment see the film "Scott Pilgrim ..."