How to Make a Flying Car: Add Sloppy to the The Jalopy

I saw this link from Diego’s metacool about approaches to building a flying car and thought about the current debate in software between “sloppy” and uber-architecture design approaches.

This is the debate, as Adam Bosworth puts it:  “So it goes with software. That software which is flexible, simple, sloppy, tolerant, and altogether forgiving of human foibles and weaknesses turns out to be actually the most steel cored, able to survive and grow while that software which is demanding, abstract, rich but systematized, turns out to collapse in on itself in a slow and grim implosion.”

What does that have to do with flying car design? The article Diego refers to compares and contrasts the approaches of a university boffin type, Paul Moller, and a boffo welder type Jesses James.

So Jesse James built a plane, which is “basically a Panoz Esperante with wings and a tail.”

“I don’t think anybody’s ever done it, not in five days,” he said, then added rhetorically, “maybe there’s a good reason for that.” un-huh!

Is good enough really the new perfect? Is flying a car 350 yards the minimum progress to declare victory?

Fwiw: I will be sticking with Airbus and Boeing for now…