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On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, David Megginson wrote:
> Michael Champion wrote:
>
> > It's hard to argue with the proposition that logic, set theory, and a
> > deep understanding of RDBMS dogma (or OO dogma, for that matter)
> > *should* help one build successful complex software systems.
> > Unfortunately, I don't know of much evidence that it really *does* help.
>
> It would probably work very well if problems remained constant throughout a
> project (like, say, building a bridge across a river), but in high tech,
> they do not -- we have only a limited need for people who can create an
> algorithm to do a computation in Olog(n) instead of On(log(n)), but we have
> an enormous need for people who can track changing requirements and
> userscapes and refactor code violently and continuously to match them, and
> we have an even bigger need for people who help build consensus and
> communities of users. It's mostly flexibility and unscientific grunt work
> that brings success.
Yup - figuring out what you want to develop (let alone how) seems the
bigger battle.
This reminds me of the "limits to software estimation"[1] article, which
relates the software estimation problem to the algorithmic complexity of
the problem, particularly in the large problem size/complexity limit [I
thought this was discussed on this list before, but can't find any
reference to it].
Funny how everything seems to end up at complexity, one way or another ;-)
Ian
--
[1] http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Work/Softestim/softestim.html
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