Links for May 26th
- A-MAZE-ING / His reputation on the line, contractor finishes repair early, and I-580 opens
Can we build software the way we rebuild highway overpasses?
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[software discussion group]
May 27th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Short answer: No.
Longer answer #1: Maybe in a hundred years.
Longer answer #2: We already do, sort of.
MacArthur Maze repair was a critical patch, and most software teams can do those pretty effectively. Several people in the article mention that the design was fairly straightforward. The engineers at CalTrans had access to the original plans and pretty soon it was clear exactly what had to be done. A completely new design would have taken much, much longer.
C.C. Myer’s achievement is mainly one of fantastic project management. He was able to reduce latencies and organize effectively so that there was no time lost. He was able to do things that are normally done sequentially concurrently, and was therefore able to more fully harness the manpower available.
The big difference between roadbuiling and software is that road building designs, techniques, and materials have been evolving for the two thousand years since the Romans invented concrete and software is a field that has only existed conceptually since around 1935, and in earnest since the 1950s.
As mentioned in your most recent code read, in a few decades we may have a programming language that has been built over time by the collaboration of praticitioners. Maybe then building software will be more like building an overpass.