I think the whole way we write and think about software is wrong. If you look at how things work right now, it's strange -- nobody -- and I mean nobody -- can really create big programs in a reliable way.

Coding from Scratch: A Conversation with Virtual Reality Pioneer Jaron Lanier, Part One
Jaron Lanier is well known for his work on "virtual reality," a term he coined in the 1980s. Renowned as a composer, musician, and artist, he has taught at many university computer science departments around the country, including Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Penn. He recently served as the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, which is devoted, among other things, to using computers to enable people in different cities to experience the illusion that they are physically together.

Currently, he is working on something he calls phenotropic computing, in which the current model of software as "protocol adherence" is replaced by "pattern recognition" as a way of connecting components of software systems.
http://java.sun.com/features/2003/01/lanier_qa1.html