Is the software engineering profession doomed to lose its memory every generation? The premise of this post is ridiculous:
>The single most important quality in a piece of software is simplicity.
How panglossian, imagining the best of all possible worlds. Well, the world is intrinsically complex, as Fred Brooks explained in his No Silver Bullet essay from 1986[0].
"The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one."
Sure, there is accidental complexity in most software problems, that can be tackled with skill and experience, and maybe reduced to zero. But then you are left with the essential complexity of the world. And you are done reducing the complexity; you can only manage it from then on. The world is very, very complex and it is a pipe dream to imagine that we can eliminate its complexity just by some bold engineering.
[0] http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-NoSilverBullet.pdf
>The single most important quality in a piece of software is simplicity.
How panglossian, imagining the best of all possible worlds. Well, the world is intrinsically complex, as Fred Brooks explained in his No Silver Bullet essay from 1986[0].
"The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one."
Sure, there is accidental complexity in most software problems, that can be tackled with skill and experience, and maybe reduced to zero. But then you are left with the essential complexity of the world. And you are done reducing the complexity; you can only manage it from then on. The world is very, very complex and it is a pipe dream to imagine that we can eliminate its complexity just by some bold engineering.
[0] http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-NoSilverBullet.pdf