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A Unified Theory of Software Evolution

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

jso888 writes "Salon has a nice article today on Meir Lehman's work on how software evolves and is developed. Lehman's investigation of the IBM OS/360 development process became the foundation for Brooks' Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." He is hopeful that his work will make software development less of an art and more of an engineering science."

9 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Evolution is a MYTH!!! by Mr.+Neutron · · Score: 3, Funny

    Software doesn't evolve by chance, folks, it is DESIGNED by its CREATORS.

    Please check your crackpot theories and psuedo-science at the door. /. is a site for SERIOUS INTELLECTUAL DISCUSSION.

    Thank you.

    --
    dinner: it's what's for beer
  2. Re:Brooks' Law by flynt · · Score: 4, Funny

    very few projects should have more than 10 programmers (if any).

    You realize you just suggested that very few software projects should have any programmers. How is the project going to get completed without anyone working on it?

  3. "Adding manpower to a late software project makes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where's the guy with the .sig "it takes nine months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the task" when you need him?!?!?!?!?

  4. Seek and thou shalt find??? by HiQ · · Score: 1, Funny

    First it's : "You'll have to forgive me," apologizes Lehman at one point, sifting through a pile of research papers on a nearby shelf. "Since I lost my secretary, I can't seem to find anything." . And in the last sentence of the article it says: ...a man in search of both fulfillment and a little revenge"
    Poor, poor man; he'll never find it I'm afraid!

  5. Re:Brooks' Law by alanwj · · Score: 3, Funny
    You realize you just suggested that very few software projects should have any programmers. How is the project going to get completed without anyone working on it?

    My boss seems to think that having a lot of meetings about it will do the trick.

  6. Actually the key point is Lehman's "Second Law" by visualight · · Score: 2, Funny

    Take, for example, Lehman's "Second Law" of software evolution, a software reworking of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    "The entropy of a system increases with time unless specific work is executed to maintain or reduce it."

    As evidenced by the back of my Subaru.

    --
    Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
  7. Re:Brooks' Law by kigrwik · · Score: 3, Funny

    >How is the project going to get completed without anyone working on it?

    Read my lips: E-VO-LU-TION

    Example:
    Start with "printf("Hello World\n");" and leave it in a warm, wet place for a few months, feed it with some .po, and .in files, and see what you get : GNU/Hello !

    I have a strong belief that's what they did with Mozilla :)

    --
    -- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
  8. Re:Brook's law can't be used by JamesOfTheDesert · · Score: 4, Funny
    So basically, you can always add manpower, you're really only half way through anyways...

    True. I used to file status reports using Zeno's Work Estimation. On each report I just halfed the percentage of remaining work.

    --

    Java is the blue pill
    Choose the red pill
  9. Height of evolution. by Jason+Pollock · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where I work, it has been a commonly held belief that all software evolves until such time as it can send and receive email. If it doesn't do this, it isn't complete. :)

    Jason Pollock