If you go out and build a house, add a room to your house, upgrade your electrical panel, or pretty much anything in construction, their are building codes to follow, permits to file, and inspectors that review the work. Some of this can be overbearing, expensive, frustrating, and even political but it’s all in place to maintain standards of security, safety, and sometimes even efficiency.What would software and the software industry be like if similar codes, permits, and inspections were in place?

On one hand, it sounds scary. No doubt it would slow down productivity and make software development a lot more complicated, expensive, and probably a lot less fun.

It may also be unrealistic. The software industry is a young one compared to modern construction and the tools, building material (aka, software components), and development processes are still being improved and debated. When is CMM appropriate? TDD, Agile Development, EJB, .Net, ISO. Can you imagine the debate if anyone really tried to develop and enforce software development and coding standards?

But when you see the almost daily announcements on software security defects, data breaches, viruses, worms, privacy issues, performance issues…. One begins to wonder when and how real standards will emerge.