ess (phil hunt) wrote:
The problems listed above are information-processing problems, that
is, software problems. Does it really require billions of dollars to
solve these problems? I say no: a few small groups of really
competent programms can be many times more productive than how
software is traditionally written.

The issue isn't programmers Phil. The issue the massive amounts of
R&D to develop the information needed to specify the sensor that the
programmers will process the output of. The issue is the massive
amount of R&D needed to develop the algorithms the programmers will
implement to analyze the output of the sensor. The issue is the
thousands of hours of R&D needed to develop the database that the
software will use to compare the output of the sensor with...

Writing the software is but one small piece (howsoever important) of a
much larger and more complex effort.

I've worked as a programmer for defense contractors (and for other large
organisations), and believe me, there is a *lot* of waste and inefficiency.
if the software was written right, it could probably be done with several orders
of magnitude more efficiency.

You could have the tightest, fastest, most efficient analysis code in
the world... But it's all meaningless without the other things that go
into making a targeting system. What you have is the typical myopia
of the programmer.

D.
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