Most software flaws would manifest during the design phase, and a crashed application just causes design delays (pushing back bridge opening, but still). The sort of software flaw that would cause the application to not crash, but to mysteriously micalculate some load/shear/whatever limit seems unlikely. You'd almost need a silicon bug, a floating point unit that just totally shits the bed and comes up with a retard result.

That said, I'm in general agreement that the software developers should be as rigorous as the "real" engineers, but that's often just impossible from an office politics standpoint.

    The sort of software flaw that would cause the application to not crash, but to mysteriously micalculate some load/shear/whatever limit seems unlikely.