...and master of none

This post will be quite different from my normal posts. It is not a quick how-to, or a design pattern, but a rebuttal... I was recently reading the introduction to a book on enterprise architecture. And the author tried to make the point that software development is a cottage industry because the "widgets" we create (software) does not have the associated factories, structures, and automation that making cars or cookies has. He points out that the auto industry spends 80% of its time designing the factory and only 20% designing the cars. At the end of building a particular type of automobile, the factory line is thrown away (or massively retooled) for the next model of car. That author, and almost every other like-minded author or speaker I've ever heard of is building a case for their "software creation" automation tools, process, or methodology (shudder). And their analogy is completely wrong. The truth is, we don't build cars or cookies. Every custom deve...