Why Designing a Mars Rover Like Curiosity Just Got a Lot Easier

When, as a writer for Wired, you re-write a company's press release into a news story, sometimes stuff like this slips in (second paragraph):<p>"His company’s software designed Curiosity."<p>When that happens, it reveals you for the hack you are.<p>If the writer had taken the time to get an independent perspective, maybe the story would have been better.

If the design and testing of physical objects occur in silica, I wonder if by picking up the speed and iteration of software, they'll also pick up the size, scope, and complexity of software.<p>While doing software dev has its advantages, there are well-known disadvantages as outlined in classics like the mythical-man month.<p>Will physical dev pick up the same disadvantages? Or is there some constraint on designing physical things that help contain complexity?

Some strange wording. As far as I know PLM is more of a concept than a specific program, and it's not really new.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_lifecycle_management" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_lifecycle_management</a>