Hangout for experimental confirmation and demonstration of software, computing, and networking. The exercises don't always work out. The professor is a bumbler and the laboratory assistant is a skanky dufus.

Recent Items
 
The Same Old Mistakes, Over and Over Again
 
Sorting the Mail: Agile Databases, Vulnerable Applications, and Optimized Code
 
SSH and Known_Hosts Vulnerabilities Threaten Grid
 
Service Research: Focusing on Requirements for Technology, not the Technology
 
TiddlyWiki: Ohmygosh, I'm in Love.
 
3I: Individualized Interactive Instruction
 
Three Defects We Can Do Without: Memory Leaks, Buffer Overflows, and Unclosed Files
 
Windows Genuine Advantage: So, did I fail the test or did the test fail?
 
Hark, Is That a Pattern I See Before Me?
 
NSS2: All Things to All People through Perfect Software

Archives
2004-06-13
2004-06-20
2004-06-27
2004-08-29
2004-09-05
2004-09-12
2004-09-19
2004-10-10
2004-10-24
2004-11-07
2004-11-28
2004-12-05
2004-12-12
2004-12-26
2005-01-30
2005-02-06
2005-03-06
2005-03-13
2005-03-20
2005-04-03
2005-04-10
2005-04-17
2005-04-24
2005-05-01
2005-05-08
2005-05-15
2005-05-29
2005-06-05
2005-06-12
2005-06-19
2005-06-26
2005-07-10
2005-07-17
2005-07-31
2005-08-28
2005-10-09
2005-10-16
2005-10-23
2005-11-13
2005-11-27
2005-12-04
2005-12-18
2006-01-08
2006-02-05
2006-02-12
2006-02-19
2006-03-05
2006-03-12
2006-03-26
2006-04-23
2006-04-30
2006-07-16
2006-07-30
2006-08-06
2006-09-03
2006-10-08

As Complex as Necessary and no More.

ACM News Service: Complexity, Chemitry, Commuting and Computing.  This blurb stands out for its focus on Tesler’s law: “Every business process has a base level of complexity that cna never be erased, only moved.”  This appears to be the process-complexity companion to the injunction attributed to Einstein: “Keep things as simple as possible, and no simpler.”

Sean McGrath’s 2005-05-19 ITWorld article observes that the tools wars won’t go away, since they reflect different views on how to manage complexity.

With regard to trustworthiness, the inclusion of Tog’s Law of Commuting is relevant: “The time of a commute is fixed.  Only the distance is variable.”  That is, there is a threshhold that will be the limit of expansion of the distance, because traveling farther exceeds the tolerance for time spent commuting.  This also applies to reduction of complexity:

“This threshold principle applies to software development too. We all have thresholds for complexity. Once we hit these we feel uncomfortable. Ideally, we find a way of reducing the total amount of complexity back into our comfort zone. If this cannot be done because the complexity is inherent to the problem, then we need to move it. Maybe we care where it is moved to, maybe we don't. The important thing for our stress levels is that it be moved.”

posted by orcmid at 5/29/2005 12:56:05 PM, rating data by NewsGator Online