Originally Posted by
deSitter
I should point out the other side - IT abstractions always fail, most IT projects fail, period: on a team of 10 programmers, 1 is productive, 2 are helpful, 4 are a waste of office chairs, and 3 are probably faking it. and have a resume full of "exaggerations".
Let's be honest here. What you're saying is probably fair in many cases. But to compare the IT projects you're talking about with what goes into real-time aviation systems is like comparing regular army with Special Forces. And I say that as a vanilla software developer who hopes he falls into the first two categories you describe.
What usually causes consumer/business-level IT projects to fail tends to fall between unrealistic expectations on the part of management, poor specification on the part of the customer, and yes, occasionally programmers with padded CVs.
This, however, has about as much relevance to the discussion at hand as trying to determine why Wilbur Wright crashed the Flyer on his first attempt.