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tl;dr premise = society is complex, software is complex; complex societies collapse... therefore complex software collapses, question mark, waggling eyebrows, s

tl;dr premise = society is complex, software is complex; complex societies collapse... therefore complex software collapses, question mark, waggling eyebrows, surely makes you think etc etc. > ...Opinions expressed in this blog are mine *and frequently wrong*. Emphasis added. Equating the complexities of software with the complexities of societies (the premise of this post) is a fun and provactive blog post. Which is all this is. I was really hoping for a serious treatment that meaningfully dug into this, but that's my problem.

narag 4y ago
I don't buy the explanation of societies collapsing because they're too complex, Some software systems do. But not because some esoteric systemic property of complex systems, but just because working projects get deprived of maintainers and eventually there's nobody that understands WTF original programmers intended and how to fix the holes. So incomprehensible portions of the system are circumvented or replaced with something that just works. Actually the same happens in societies, unless some group sabotages the workaround.
Forge36 4y ago
OS/360? https://sudonull.com/post/111636-IBM-System-360-A-Failing-Story https://sudonull.com/post/111636-IBM-System-360-A-Failing-St... I think we've seen this with the rise and fall of hardware vendors. Most recently with the Mobile OS ecosystem (symbian, windows mobile)
- popcorncowboy 4y ago
  My issue lies with software engineers making associations that society is like software. The causal factors behind why societies fail and why software projects fail are completely different. Complexity is a description of the system and a very bad measure to draw an equivalence between the two. The risk with drawing this equivalence is it grants license to software engineers to think that similar enough models apply to "managing software" as "managing societies". Because when all you have is a hammer... But society is not a nail.

narag 4y ago

I don't buy the explanation of societies collapsing because they're too complex, Some software systems do. But not because some esoteric systemic property of complex systems, but just because working projects get deprived of maintainers and eventually there's nobody that understands WTF original programmers intended and how to fix the holes. So incomprehensible portions of the system are circumvented or replaced with something that just works. Actually the same happens in societies, unless some group sabotages the workaround.

Forge36 4y ago

OS/360? https://sudonull.com/post/111636-IBM-System-360-A-Failing-Story https://sudonull.com/post/111636-IBM-System-360-A-Failing-St... I think we've seen this with the rise and fall of hardware vendors. Most recently with the Mobile OS ecosystem (symbian, windows mobile)

popcorncowboy 4y ago
My issue lies with software engineers making associations that society is like software. The causal factors behind why societies fail and why software projects fail are completely different. Complexity is a description of the system and a very bad measure to draw an equivalence between the two. The risk with drawing this equivalence is it grants license to software engineers to think that similar enough models apply to "managing software" as "managing societies". Because when all you have is a hammer... But society is not a nail.