The Economist Tackles Complexity in IT

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

Comments

Re:The comments here underline the problem

[SlashHoe]

All my programs would have a great interfaces if they only had 1 boolean variable in it. A light switch is very simple. But try connecting it to the internet, email a friend and do your accounting with a light switch.

Re:Why should we believe what they say?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Je Suis Marxiste, Tendance Groucho (Not worth actually looking up the french spelling for a joke).

Re:Lisp, Smalltalk and complexity.

[John Courtland]

Strong typing should be a damn requirement. Every language I use that doesn't allow strong typing seriously chaps my ass in a major way. The last time was when I was simply trying to implement a dumb calculator for RPM MPH for a car given gearing info and tire size. Simple function:

function get_tire_circumference_in_inches(tire_width, tire_profile, rim_diameter)
{
return (3.1415926535 * (rim_diameter + 2 * (tire_width * 0.01 * tire_profile)/25.4));
}

But javascript, when provided 16 as rim_diameter, returned some huge number (~5,000+), instead of what I expected (~84). Turns out JavaScript interpreted all the other numbers fine, but somehow wanted to make the 16 a literal, and added the damn thing right onto the end of the equation. That took me about an hour to figure out. I finally ended up getting Venkman and watched it fuck up. Then I tried implementing (and did get it to work, eventually with some code pinching) MD5 in JavaScript. Yeah, it's not worth it. Imagine if this were production work... VB (especially VB...) has done similar shit to me. To me, languages that do that are not languages, they're toys.

Re:Why should we believe what they say?

[timeOday]

A) Space tourism.
B) Biotechnology.
C) Marketing.
D) Robotics.

Unfortunately only one of those options is realistic, and I'm not a good liar.

Complex IT acronyms

[Linuxathome]

On the lighter side of things, I find it funny that IT departments often "re-invent" themselves by changing their name and acronyms--a complexity in themselves. You find acronyms such as MIS, CLC, ITC, CIT, CITS, etc. But in essence they all stand for the same thing.

My university's acronym is CITS (Computer and Information Technology Systems), and before that they were just the CLC (Computer Learning Center). Imagine if they kept the name "Learning" in the acronym somewhere, it could've been: Computer Learning and Information Technology Systems (CLITS). But somehow I don't see that happening.