Interview with Jaron Lanier on "Phenotropic" Development

Sky Lemon writes "An interview with Jaron Lanier on Sun's Java site discusses 'phenotropic' development versus our existing set of software paradigms. According to Jaron, the 'real difference between the current idea of software, which is protocol adherence, and the idea [he is] discussing, pattern recognition, has to do with the kinds of errors we're creating' and if 'we don't find a different way of thinking about and creating software, we will not be writing programs bigger than about 10 million lines of code no matter how fast our processors become.'"

Comments

10 million lines

[chuck]

we will not be writing programs bigger than about 10 million lines of code no matter how fast our processors become.

Thank God.

-Chuck

Full of it.

[cmason]

If you think about it, if you make a small change to a program, it can result in an enormous change in what the program does. If nature worked that way, the universe would crash all the time. Certainly there wouldn't be any evolution or life.

<cough>Bullshit.</cough>

This guy obviously knows nothing about biology. A single base change in DNA can result in mutations that cause death or spontaneous abortion. As little as a change in a single 'character' can be lethal. That's a pretty "small change" that results in a pretty big "crash."

I'm not sure if this invalidates his argument, but it certainly doesn't do much for his credibility.

10 million lines of bullpucky

[aminorex]

And when you link your 10 million line program with my
10 million line program, we've got a 20 million line program.
This idea of an inherent limit to the complexity of
programs using current methods is pure larksvomit, and
if Jaron Lanier sells it, he's a snake oil hawker.

This is Jack's total lack of surprise -> :|

Big Programs

[Afty0r]

"if 'we don't find a different way of thinking about and creating software, we will not be writing programs bigger than about 10 million lines of code no matter how fast our processors become."

Fantastic! We'll all get down and program small, specific routines for processing data, each one doing its' own job and doing it well. Those nasty, horrid standard protocols he refers to will allow all these small components to easily talk to each other - across architectures, networks etc.

Oh wait, this is the way it already works. Is this guy then, proposing that we learn a new way to program because our systems aren't monolithic enough? *sigh*

Re:Evolution and Core Dump

[haystor]

I think its a pretty good analogy but that comparing it to biology leaves it a bit ambiguous as to what the metaphor is.

If you compare it to something like building a house or office building the analogy works. If you misplace one 2x4, its very unlikely that anything will ever happen. Even with something as serious as doors, if you place one 6 inches to the left or right of where its supposed to be, it usually works out ok. It always amazed me once I started working with construction at how un-scientific it was. I remember being told that the contractors don't need to know that space is 9 feet 10 1/2 inches. Just tell them its 10 feet and they'll cut it to fit.

One of the amazing things about AutoCad versus the typical inexpensive CAD program is that it deals with imperfections. You can build with things that have a +/- to them and it will take that into account.

Overall, he definitely seems to be on the right track from what I've seen. Most of the projects I've been working on (J2EE stuff) it seems to be taken as a fact that its possible to get all the requirements and implement them exactly. Like all of business can be boiled down to a simple set of rules.