Please post a link to your paper. I for one would love to read it. On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 3:45 AM Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Jon, > > As an observer of software "engineering" since its inception in 1968 (my > first job as a programmer was that fall, and that spring/summer is when the > NATO conference first coined the phrase), I can and will (braggadocio here) > state that most software CANNOT be engineered, precision or otherwise, and > all that we have learned in the past 52 years in both computer science and > software engineering is essentially irrelevant to the production of > application level software. > > The protocols that ensure cat photos are scattered into packets traversing > vast segments of the Internet to be reassembled and presented on you phone > in real time, is an example of the minority of software that can be > engineered. The vote counting app *could not have been*. > > The difference is that the first replicates, in software, a deterministic > machine with limited variables, all of which can be known and quantified, > limited relations among variables, all of which can be known and stated; > and the second one is a complex system where variables and relations are > highly dynamic, idiosyncratic, and, often, quite literally unknowable. > > I just completed a sixty-page essay on this subject "Why Programming is > Hard and Software Development is (Mostly) Impossible" that addresses this > issue. If you would like to read, let me know and I will send you a link or > the paper. > > Making things worse is the superstructure around software development — > all the methodologies, all the frameworks, all the management levels, all > the practices that supposedly guide/govern the process of developing > software. > > Icing on the cake, is attitude. Those that contract for software EXPECT > that the project will fail and/or that what they get will be a pale > imitation of what they wanted, full of bugs and inconsistencies. The > development team also EXPECTS the project to fail, for different reasons, > but fail nevertheless. > > And roughly 90-percent of the time both sides have their expectations > realized. (60-65 % of projects started are abandoned without any delivery, > the other 20-25 percent are those pale imitations over budget and taking > twice the time.) > > One more factor - the game is rigged. Those that might actually be able to > deliver reasonable software applications are not allowed to play in the > game. Acronym and Shadow came into existence because people in Hillary > Clinton's campaign thought they saw a way to make money and used their > connections to get established and make contracts. The "bid" process was > laughable, the specs being written such that no one but Shadow could comply > and in a time frame that Microsoft, et. al. were not able to respond > adequately. > > Half a billion dollars were spent on the Obamacare website and another > half-billion to get it to work after the initial failure. A startup team of > Web-developers built the site with full functionality, including > calculating subsidies (supposedly the hard part) in a week. Their site was > demoed on Sixty Minutes. But they would never have been allowed to bid on > the original project because they did not meet Federal procurement > guidelines which were rigged to very large companies most of whom have a > remarkably long history of spectacular failures on past projects. > > Frothing at the mouth so much, am at risk of dehydration. > > dave > > > On Fri, Feb 7, 2020, at 8:54 PM, Jon Zingale wrote: > > My intention in drawing attention to critical application > development is an attempt to deepen the discussion > around 'apps' and rhetoric. In the discussions around > app usage in the democratic primaries, the target appears > to be the vulnerability which exists today because > programmers today are a bunch of python hacks who > never read Knuth. Yet, not a single Friam mother-church > meeting passes without a discussion of the precision > engineering embodied in our Porches, Teslas, or iphones. > > Of particular interest to me in directing this rhetorical frame > are the so-called-on-wikipedia FBI-Apple encryption dispute > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_dispute> > and the Target corp data breach <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.04940.pdf> of > 2013. In the first case, > the federal government is confronted by the reality that a > phone manufacturer *can* in fact make cryptographically > challenging hand held devices. Further we can use this > powerful technology for sending our family cat pictures > which arrive at their target destinations almost without > fail and near instantaneously. There is a sense of *justified* > *indignation* when the cat photo takes more than a second > to be delivered. The state-of-the-art is such that we *can* > have nice things. > > In the second case, a data breach is exploited in the POS system > of big box corporation which sells mostly useless things. Next, > a public rhetoric emerges similar to the rhetoric I am witnessing > here with the democratic primaries. Instead of pointing out that > Target corp doesn't consider our privacy a critical concern, we > speak of how impossible it is to have privacy and how vulnerable > we feel because Target corp is a critical institution. > > Jon > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
