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December 08, 2004
Nonspecialist
Dad clipped an article from The Economist about software development and managing the complexity of the problem. The author claims software projects fail due to our tools not being up to the task. The author interviewed a few top tools division managers at Microsoft, Borland, and elsewhere, claiming that the solution to the problem lies right around the corner. All they need to do is write some more new software that they will kindly sell to us.
Yeah, right. As it stands, we build software -- in itself a difficult thing to get right even under optimal conditions -- from inadequate specifications, most of which we don't want to use as is anyway. Instead, we try to generalize from one user's or customer's (poorly understood) need to come up with a one-size-fits all solution. And that's what we do when we have a relatively clear understanding of what's needed, which is, believe me, not all the time, not even most of the time.
The tools we use are far from perfect. Yet, when a wall falls down, you would not immediately suspect the spades used to smooth the mortar, or the hammer used to drive the nails.
In most fields, we're like this journalist. Nonspecialists trying to grasp something, but missing so much background we can hardly apply our normal ability to reason.
Posted by Mark at December 8, 2004 09:23 PM