scary details

For Your Information: Following is a very interesting transcript from the book ‘Inside COM’ By Dale Rogerson – Microsoft Press. I felt that the thought in the extract below was quite generic and it could benefit the readers that have nothing at all to do with COM. BTW, for the souls who are curious to know what on earth COM is? It is an abbreviation/acronym for Component Object Model, which is one of the popular paradigm in the art of programming and the aforementioned book is the best to get a hang of the subject.

The spirit of the Wright brothers is still very much alive. Hundreds of people every year build airplanes from the kits in their garages. These are not plastic models, radio control airplanes or little fabric ultra-lights. These people are building modern, two-person, fully enclosed planes from high-tech composite materials. To meet certain FAA regulations the kit managers can do only 49 percent of the work involved in building the airplane. The other 51 percent is the responsibility of the builder at home.

Building 51 percent of the plane can take someone anywhere from 250 to 5000 hours, depending on the airplane. Most kit manufacturers offer quick-build kits with many parts already assembled, such as completely pre-welded frames and pre-impregnated composite parts. Using these parts, doesn’t take long for the kit to start looking like an airplane. However the kit is still a long way from being an airplane. Most of the builders time is spent working out the details: installing instrument panel, instruments, seats, seat belts, fire extinguisher, carpet, safety wires, placards, control cables, wiring, lights, batteries, firewall, air vents, pitot tube, heater, windows, door latches, door handles, and many more items.

Many enthusiastic kit-plane builders have become depressed and disillusioned, and have even quit during the long period of time it takes to finish the plane. Similarly many people have attempted to learn hard subjects, such as COM, only to get overwhelmed by the details and quit.