chriton227
Explorer
I don't think it's a lot like software design, though. Software design is much more specific, focused, and done to spec. At the moment, they're playtesting and pitching ideas and concepts as much as they're bug-hunting. It's very early in the process (we're, what, only five weeks in?)
Not all software development is code to spec, a lot of what I've been involved in is more of a case of a group of users having a problem they need help solving or an idea they need help implementing, and it is a very iterative approach with lots of proof of concept work and testing out different ideas until the end goal is accomplished.
They are a lot more than 5 weeks in. They hired Monte Cook back in September 2011 to work on 5e (by his own admission in a Fear the Boot podcast interview), the Friends and Family playtest was going on back in January 2012, and the first big public preview took place at D&D Experience at the end of January 2012. By my count, they are between 6 and 9 months into development, maybe more if they were already working on 5e before they rehired Monte (the 5e Info page here indicates they started thinking about it in 2010).
I would have bought that they were still in the phase of pitching ideas and concepts back during DDXP, but that was 5 months ago and they should be well past that point in development now, at least as far as the core rules go. If they are thinking about trying for a GenCon 2013 release (and I don't know that they are), I would hope that the rules would be getting a final polish within the next few months to give time for the development of any supporting products, particularly any software or online tools; having the game rules still in flux while trying to develop those tools could easily lead to a repeat of the 4e online tools SNAFU (we're still waiting on the final release of some of the tools promised in the core 4e books 4 years ago).