Why software is so bad these days

I believe the problems leading to poor software is not in the C++ or Perl or Java, but in the "English", the language the original problem was specified in.

I just read this post on another blog, "coding horrors".

The question is Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?

Now in a conversation we would make the intuitive leap that the other is a boy, but it may be a man or woman. Looking at the parent would probably fill in the blanks.

There are some 500+ replies to that post. Most debating 50% or 66.6% as the correct answer, pulling in permutations and probabilities. All nice and mathematical. A few pedants in the crowd start being smart about XY XX chromosome and shared father stats'. If they want to get into that, it's going beyond the information we have. 50% chance for a child being a boy is an accepted fact, it may be more like 55% for a girl. Is this a global given value?

Since it's on a programming forum I'd like to think it's pointing out how people miss hear/interpret information. Everyone thinks it's a rephrasing of a standard problem, and are solving that.

You know what they say about assume, it makes an Ass out of U and Me.

Happy New Year all...