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

The comments here underline the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, folks, the comments I've read so far underline the problem: Techies are concentrating on the complexity of the underlying _technology_, not the user interface. If you're making a tool people will use, the focus is the people not the tool.

Think about a light switch. How many times do you use one in a day? How often do you think about using it?

There ya go: Complicated technology completely hidden from the user.