After more than 30 years of programming we ought to know that the design of complex software is inherently difficult. This despite of the fact that, for decades, the industry has been advertising programmers' positions by claiming that programming is easy. Later on, when doubts arose even to the advertisers, they switched to promising a wide variety of tools to facilitate the arduous tasks. Tools became the slogan; the right tools, paired with clever tricks and serious management methods, would work wonders. Then Edsger Dijkstra called Software Engineering 'Programming in spite of the fact that you can't'.

Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence. A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logical thinking, and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.