Re: Development: A Structured Problem Area?

Andrew Hunt wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-15 at 18:37, Derek Richardson wrote:
>> I am unclear about how software exhibits emergent behavior. From my
>> understanding of the complexity literature, emergence can occur
>> when many independent agents with simple rules interact; the Game
>> of Life being an example.
> As soon as you get a number of independent agents interacting, you
> can get emergence.  It can happen in social situations, obviously (a
> team is a collection of independent agents interacting).  But it can
> also happen--by accident or design--in software systems.  Programs
> like the Game of Life do it by design.  Programs with highly-coupled,
> interacting pieces may begin to show emergence by accident (and not
> on the happy end).

Yep. Things like disks, files, networks, the Windows Registry, ... :-(

[ ... ]

> In the meantime, we still need to convince the 40% of software teams
> in the US who *don't* use version control that they should, and
> likewise the 70% who don't do daily builds.  I *do* know of some
> books they should read :-)

Andy, do you know if there's a handy online citation for such numbers?

-- 
Edmund Schweppe -- schweppe-EkmVulN54Sk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- 
http://schweppe.home.tiac.net
The opinions expressed herein are at best coincidentally related to
those of any past, present or future employer.


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