Reading the NATO report on software engineering that came out of the 1968 conference where the term "software crisis" was coined. (It's at https://www.scrummanager.com/files/nato1968e.pdf if you want to read it too.)
Currently on page 11. ELEVEN. (Out of 200+.) It says right here: "The need for feedback was stressed many times."
We knew. Have always known. Feedback is the key to everything. Any process that intentionally delays feedback is going to run into problems. We took such a wrong turn in the 1990s. Ugh.
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Now reading Randell's 1979 comments on the 1968 report (https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/800091.802915). He quotes J.W. Smith:
"I'm still bemused by the way they attempt to build software... They begin with planning specification, go through functional specifications, implementation specifications, etc., etc. If you look down the PERT-chart you discover that all the nodes on it up until the last one produce nothing but paper. It is unfortunately true that people confuse the menu with the meal."
(edited for brevity)
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"Don't confuse the menu with the meal" is my new favorite phrase.
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Back to the 1968 report. SO MANY GOOD QUOTES. Gonna thread a few of my favs.
"Today we tend to go on for years, with tremendous investments to find that the system, which was not well understood to start with, does not work as anticipated. We build systems like the Wright brothers built airplanes — build the whole thing, push it off the cliff, let it crash, and start over again." -- Graham
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"I know of one organisation that attempts to apply time and motion standards to the output of programmers. They judge a programmer by the amount of code he produces. This is guaranteed to produce insipid code — code which does the right thing but which is twice as long as necessary." -- McClure
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“There are two classes of system designers. The first, if given five problems will solve them one at a time. The second will come back and announce that these aren’t the real problems, and will eventually propose a solution to the single problem which underlies the original five. This is the ‘system type’ who is great during the initial stages of a design project. However, you had better get rid of him after the first six months if you want to get a working system.” — Kinslow
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I'll just stop here. The entire paper is AMAZING. You can find a copy here: http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF
Seriously, I wish I'd read this report earlier. So many of the pain points that the participants discuss will feel familiar to anyone in software. Technology has changed. People have not. We have some better answers now than we did then. But we still have the same pressures, and illusions, that led to the original declaration of a "crisis."
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Oh! One more. Last one, I swear:
"As one single example of such a source of ideas I would like to mention: Christopher Alexander: Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Harvard Univ. Press, 1964)" -- Naur.
Yup, that's right. The connection between Alexander's work on architecture and software was made as early as 1968. 😮
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OK OK this one is the last one. I think I have found the earliest use of the notion of a walking skeleton. Again, this is 1968.
"Begin with skeletal coding: Rather than aiming at finished code, the 46 first coding steps should be aimed at exploring interfaces, sizes of critical modules, complexity, and adequacy of the modules... The contributions of this step should be insight and experience, with the aim of exploring feasibility." -- David
(edited for brevity)
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@testobsessed David who?
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@gdinwiddie that was how the quote was credited in the paper. Link is in the thread.
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@testobsessed
I’ll check it when I’m on my computer.
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@gdinwiddie @testobsessed
Looks like it was Dr. E.E. David, Jr., Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc
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@testobsessed Just skimmed it and wow, thanks, I see why you can't stop quoting!
Instafollow btw 😄 and thanks to the boosters* too!
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@testobsessed I think my first exposure to Alexander was in the first Whole Earth Catalog (1968). On the same page as Thompsons's On Growth and Form. A very important page in my life as a systems designer
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@bbelton Oh my word that is so cool! Thank you!
(Also: $6.95 post paid. Such a bargain! Yes, I know that's $63 today, and in a year when my Dad made ~$5000/year. So not cheap. But still fun to see.)
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@testobsessed All online now at https://wholeearth.info
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@bbelton Oh dang! I didn't know. That is amazing. Thank you!
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@testobsessed ooh, I definitely know that guy
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@aburka @testobsessed yea, it's me. Going to have a rethink of my life now....
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@arichtman @aburka So I should probably have injected my opinion on that quote. I disagree with the author. If I'm hiring and have just the 2 candidates, I'll take the second type over the first...but what I really want is a 3rd type who will start like the first, then see the pattern (rule of 3) and only then refactor to solve the real single underlying problem. I've seen the code bases produced by the 1st approach with no opportunity for extracting the common logic, and...well...shudder.
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@testobsessed @arichtman yeah the switch hitter here can be the mvp
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@aburka @testobsessed "...so you're saying there's a chance?"
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@testobsessed I read this and immediately thought, "Inside me are two wolves...."
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@testobsessed hah. I love that one. So true
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@testobsessed ICYMI: “-2000 lines of code”
https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html
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@raganwald oh thank you! I'd totally forgotten that story and wouldn't have been able to find it if I remembered it. So good.
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text/gemini
