Why we've got quality control that can only be equaled by NASA!
Jack Lemmon in 'The China Syndrome'
Those were the famous last words of the nuclear power industry. The movie 'The China Syndrome' was released 12 days before the nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, PA experienced an event similar to the fictional event portrayed in the movie.
Both NASA and the nuclear power industry incur great expense to ensure quality. The nuclear power industry has priced itself out of the market. NASA has lost its culture of innovation and has experienced many failures. How does software development industry recognize and address issues of quality? Paul Graham's blog describes the costs that quality and governance programs impose.
The failure experienced in 'The China Syndrome' occurred in components in which the rigorous QA process was circumvented. The QA process in the movie was slow and manual so there was high incentive to avoiding it. In software development, automated testing is generally found to be cheaper and faster than manual testing and so automated testing lowers the incentive to avoiding essential steps in ensuring QA.