Survivors bias, I think. We just don't see all those buildings/bridges that collapsed.
And they put bridge designers beneath the bridge when legion crossed it for the first time. If we started to do equivalent for programmers, we would have much better code quality :)
And in regard to programming language design we don't have calculus, either. We're just experimenting, and trying to repeat what works.
That's definitely part of it. But the Romans really did care about engineering and took it seriously -- one of the earliest writers on architecture was Vitruvius. What did he say about buildings?
That they should be safe, functional and attractive, in that order.
> And in regard to programming language design we don't have calculus, either.
