Most Problems in Software Development are Self Inflicted

The spread of a fever and infections was a real issue for hospitals during the mid 1800’s. There was a doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis of Vienna Austria, who believed statistical methods, could be applied to medicine. He believed a lot about disease could be learned through systematic study and observation. Dr. Semmelweis discovered doctors were the primary cause of the spread of “the fever” and infectious diseases in hospitals, in other words, physicians were causing their own problems. His ideas regarding the application of statistics to medicine, and especially his idea that physicians caused the spread of disease, was rejected by many of his contemporary physicians. At conference in 1861 Semmelweis presented his ideas and most of the other speakers rejected his theory. Many doctors argued even if Semmelweis was right it would be too much work to wash their hands between patient visits. Semmelweis was eventually fired from his job as a physician in Vienna.¹

Like Ignaz Semmelweis through years of systematic study and observation, I have come to the conclusion that software developers cause most of their own problems. In other words, the root cause of most of the problems facing software development is actually caused by software developers themselves. They are creating their own complexity and chaos.

Horne RA. "Science Fraud--a Review of Broad and Wade: Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science."Physiological Chemistry and Physics and Medical NMR15.5(1983).