Try to solve the following simple puzzle by listening to your intuition; don’t try to solve it with mathematics or calculation.
A baseball bat and ball costs $1.10. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Take note of your immediate response.
This seems like an easy question. Since this is supposed to be a book about engineering, an intellectually demanding discipline, you probably suspect a trap.
We’ll return to the bat and ball shortly.
This chapter takes a step back and attempts to answer a fundamental question: Why is software development so difficult?
The answer that it proposes is ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
