I really like the perspective provided by the General systems thinking [0]: There are problems with little randomness and number of moving parts: these problem

I really like the perspective provided by the General systems thinking [0]: There are problems with little randomness and number of moving parts: these problems are either easy to reason about, or easy to solve by analytical means (think of systems that can be reduced to few equations). Then, there are problems with either/both: large number of elements and high degree of randomness. These problems can be dealt with statistics. Then there is a ball of mud between - medium number of elements/randomness. The number of interactions is too high to be able to reason about them effectively, yet too little to derive solution by statistical means. Most of the software, especially poorly written one falls in this realm- the more interactions between elements, the harder to reason about. Mastering algorithmic wizardry just moves you slightly right on this plot- being able to decrease the number of interactions makes the system easier to reason about [1] 0: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-General-Systems-Thinking-Anniversary/dp/0932633498 https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-General-Systems-Thinking... 1: http://article.sapub.org/image/10.5923.j.ajss.20150401.02_001.gif http://article.sapub.org/image/10.5923.j.ajss.20150401.02_00...