Re: [patterns-discussion] Ultra-Large-Scale Systems Workshop @ OOPSLA

[mark]

Having experience in two ULS programs (IBM Workplace OS and the Army's FCS), I have some confidence in saying the origin of problems in ULS programs are mostly non-technical.  That is to say, issues in psychology, namely social psychology, prevail over technical issues - even over the most carefully developed software engineering and management processes.

My observation includes experience with programs executing under CMM level 5 and ISO9001 certified processes and also rigid government-regulated processes (FAA, FDA, MIL-STD).  Furthermore, it has been my observation of 30+ organizations that as complexity and team size increases, the issues become much more people-originated.  (You might want to look at the work of Larry Putnam and Alistair Cockburn.)

But I'm just an average consultant working in the trenches and don't really know why I'm writing this (chuckle) other than to opine what I believe underpins dominant issues in ULS programs.  Unfortunately, I don't wield impressive credentials - only some experience and perhaps a slightly odd perspective, so take this for what its worth.

Cheers!
Mark

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard P. Gabriel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], patterns-discussion@cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: [patterns-discussion] Ultra-Large-Scale Systems Workshop @ OOPSLA
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:45:07 -0700


This workshop might be of interest to you or to people you know. At OOPSLA.
Please pass this along.

http://dreamsongs.com/Feyerabend/Breathturn2006.html

Short blurb:

Scale changes everything.

The trend in the design and development of software-intensive systems today
is toward scale that increases in every measurable way. Lines of code,
complexity, dependency, communication, bandwidth, memory, datasets, and
many other measures for our systems continue to reach and exceed the limits
of our ability to produce high-quality systems for all purposes.

These systems will be unbounded, integrating internet-scale resources. They
will serve diverse stakeholders with competing objectives and at the same
time be constrained by policy, regulation, and the behaviors of their
users. The lines between development, acquisition, and operations will
blur: ULS systems will not die; they will be too large to be replaced and
will be inextricably connected to the day-to-day mission. Rather, they will
continue to evolve over time with behavior often more emergent than
planned. Because complete specifications will not be achievable, sufficient
assurance will have to do. ULS systems present "wicked problems," ones for
which each attempt to create a solution changes the problem. Some of these
characteristics appear in conventional systems, but in ULS systems they
will dominate.

-rpg-
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