Analogy on software engineering & PEBKAC

Leyendo los comentarios de un post de reddit donde Peter Norvig (director de investigación en Google) contesta preguntas hechas por la comunidad me encontré este (contexto: Norvig habla de la diferencia entre Civil Engineering y Software Engineering, y construir puentes VS construir programas):

Imagine that one day, one of your users (a driver) decides to drive off the bridge. In civil engineering, it isn't your fault, it's his. In Software, it is your fault. You would have to have thought about a way of preventing that. Thats akin to saying that when a driver is about to drive off a bridge, a huge rubber wall should instantly appear bouncing him into the bridge again. This wall should have the message "The operation you tried to do is not allowed".

En otras palabras, el problema del desarrollo de software es que en caso de PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair), la culpa recae sobre el programador en vez de sobre el Between-Keyboard-And-Chair. Maldito mundo injusto =P.

La "entrevista" completa de Norvig está aquí. El comentario original acá.