I enjoy this metaphor of the cow and the papier-mâché.
Presumably, there is a farmer who raised the cow, then purchased the papier-mâché, then scrounged for a palette of paints, and meticulously assembled everything in a field -- all for the purpose of entertaining distant onlookers.
That is software engineering. In Gettier's story, we're not the passive observers. We're the tricksters who thought papier-mâché was a good idea.