Brooks: > The essence of a software entity is a construct of interlocking concepts: data sets, relationships among data items, algorithms, and in

Brooks: > The essence of a software entity is a construct of interlocking concepts: data sets, relationships among data items, algorithms, and invocations of functions. This essence is abstract, in that the conceptual construct is the same under many different representations. It is nonetheless highly precise and richly detailed. I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation. We still make syntax errors, to be sure; but they are fuzz compared to the conceptual errors in most systems. I think Brooks by focusing on the reality of the world reflected into topology of systems focuses on the essentials for the complexity. Yes, we can abstract some complexity but we also know these abstractions are leaky - heaping too many of them on top of each other and it topples. Even more important there are limits to how much most of us can juggle in their minds - exceed that threshold and we need a team with all the overhead that accompanies that. Once inter human communication is part of the process any optimization on tool level can only improve the situation by so much.