Joel on Software: Good software takes ten years, sayeth the Joel. He compares software development to wine. He makes an interesting point. It's probably true for large systems. There is a firmly entrenched way of thinking among programmers, that a good program is the brilliant work of an individual. The reality is that the best software takes hundreds if not thousands of good programmers (and testers etc.) years of work, paying close attention to feedback from customers and marketing folks.