Simple matter of software

The phrase "simple matter of software" has been in common use within the software industry sense at least the early 1980's

It is sometimes used as an ironic comment on both the growing importance of software in all human activity and the real difficulty we have in creating good quality software.

However, it is also sometimes used without irony to indicate that straightforward software development is all that is required to resolve some as issue. This usage is often invoked when the speaker wants contrast the implied ease of software changes with the imagined greater difficulty of making a hardware change or a change to an industry standard is required. This non-ironic usage is more often used by senior management and hardware engineers, than it is by software engineers.

References to public usages