[VonGallifrey]

> I brought over the blueprints, and the technician found the schedule of beams and columns within seconds

Is that really an example of the standardization you want? It shows that the blueprint was done in a way that the technician expected it to be, but I am not sure that these blueprints are standardized in that way globally. Each country has its standards and language.

If an architect from a different country did that blueprint, I would bet that it would be significantly different from the blueprint you have.

Software Engineering doesn't have a problem with country borders, but different languages would require different standards and conventions. Unless you can convince everyone to use the same language (which would be a bad idea; CRUD apps and rocket systems have different trade-offs), I doubt there could be an industry-wide standard.

[lanstin]

But I can't look at the design from my desk-mate and hope to understand it quickly. We wall love to invent as much as possible ourselves, and we lack a common design language for the spaces we are problem solving in. Personally I don't entirely think it's a problem of discipline of software engineering, but a reflection of the fact that the space of possible solutions is so high for software, and the [opportunity] cost of missing a great solution because it is too different from previous solutions is so high (difference between 120 seconds application start and 120 milliseconds application start, for instance).