By Ian Fogarty and George Franz on March 05, 2021 at 4:01 AM F-35 production line Among the reasons for America’s military preeminence is the quality and effectiveness of its weapons. During World War II the key to allied victory was the country’s remarkable ability to bend metal and build huge quantities of tanks, Jeeps, trucks, airplanes and ships. Today, many senior defense officials and industry experts say weapons are software first and metal second. That makes software development incredibly important, and, because software gets developed much faster than hardware, there’s great pressure to build faster. Our authors, both experts in software and technology, present their formula for meeting the conflicting demands of code and chips and hardware development. Read on! The Editor.