Conway's Law • Hacker News Board

Re: Conway's Law

#21

Post by KevanM » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 12:47 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #2

"organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." I'd say that organizations are not just constrained to do that -- they should. When you design systems and infrastructure, keep in mind that systems and solutions are under evolutionary pressure, and engineers have to change it all the time. When optimizing for change, y…

What if the communication structures are poorly designed and you are building a system on top of an organisation that is struggling to communicate effectively?

The project leadership might hope that building a new system will be able change the communication problem. This suggests that it will only compound the problem.

Re: Conway's Law

#22

Post by vk23 » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #16

What do you build when everyone talks to each other over Slack?

>What do you build when everyone talks to each other over Slack?

This should be pretty obvious. You build all systems around a single messagebroker and each service/unit uses a chrome browser to connect to it.

Re: Conway's Law

#23

Post by seba_dos1 » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #16

What do you build when everyone talks to each other over Slack?

Memory hogs.

Re: Conway's Law

#24

Post by tialaramex » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

It's maybe interesting to consider Conway's Law in respect of the systems designed by IETF Working Groups (as distinct from the wider scope of systems that have an RFC but were designed wholly outside the IETF or brought to the IETF largely finished for just a bit of spit and polish)

Whether the IETF is an organisation per se is a fun question in itself of course since it has no membership. It is clearly an activity, but so is break-dancing or reading poetry and we do not suppose that people who read poetry are an "organisation". But if it /is/ an organization, then is that organisation reflected in the things it designs?

Re: Conway's Law

#25

Post by vlehto » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

kitd wrote: post #4

Conway's Law validates a decision to move to a service-oriented and/or microservice architecture. Each service ~= a business unit or department. Even better is that such an architecture requires (or at least greatly benefits from) specifying precisely the communication between the interacting parts in the form of interfaces. IIRC there is a study that Steve McConnell mentions in one of his books (sorry, I can't find…

So it's "microservices" now?

Mongols figured out around year 1200 that in a proper military organization, you have one boss and maximum of about 10 subordinates and 10 peers. Though it was already written about by Sun Tzu way earlier. Chain of command ought to be clear from private to general. Romans had earlier found out that a group of about 100 men is good department size for day to day operations. (Roughly the Dunbar number of the least capable members of the group.)

Then commercial companies noticed that they don't have to abide to military hierarchy. But they didn't notice the underlying biological tendencies. As a result every second industry fad is reinventing the same social structure over and over again.

Factory with departments -> open plan office -> teams -> matrix organization -> sprints -> (I lost track here) -> microservice?

Every company has problems. If the biggest problem is poor flow of information between departments/teams, then that company has competitive advantage to the guys who have some serious issues.

Re: Conway's Law

#26

Post by ghaff » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

cateye wrote: post #20

I feel old when these kind of Wikipedia pages make it to the front page and I was assuming that it was known and obvious for everyone.

Yes. When speaking and writing, I constantly struggle with the fact that a lot of things that are eye-rollingly last year's or even last decade's news for some are eye-opening new concepts for others. It's easy to assume that what's almost cliche in your specific circle is as well known everywhere.

Re: Conway's Law

#27

Post by dzdt » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 1:46 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #26

cateye wrote: post #20

I feel old when these kind of Wikipedia pages make it to the front page and I was assuming that it was known and obvious for everyone.

Yes. When speaking and writing, I constantly struggle with the fact that a lot of things that are eye-rollingly last year's or even last decade's news for some are eye-opening new concepts for others. It's easy to assume that what's almost cliche in your specific circle is as well known everywhere.

You're one of today's lucky 10000!

[1]https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: Conway's Law

#28

Post by sixstringtheory » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #26

cateye wrote: post #20

I feel old when these kind of Wikipedia pages make it to the front page and I was assuming that it was known and obvious for everyone.

Yes. When speaking and writing, I constantly struggle with the fact that a lot of things that are eye-rollingly last year's or even last decade's news for some are eye-opening new concepts for others. It's easy to assume that what's almost cliche in your specific circle is as well known everywhere.

I’ve found that going into the speaking or writing engagement, that assuming at least one person will encounter the info for the first time alleviates any worry I have about others finding it banal.

New people are born every day!

Re: Conway's Law

#29

Post by wavemode » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

This also applies to performance. Nobody cares that the system is nightmarishly slow in bureaucratic corporations where even the simplest software projects take 6 months minimum.

Re: Conway's Law

#30

Post by spanktheuser » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #26

cateye wrote: post #20

I feel old when these kind of Wikipedia pages make it to the front page and I was assuming that it was known and obvious for everyone.

Yes. When speaking and writing, I constantly struggle with the fact that a lot of things that are eye-rollingly last year's or even last decade's news for some are eye-opening new concepts for others. It's easy to assume that what's almost cliche in your specific circle is as well known everywhere.

When I was younger I thought of the course of knowledge as steadily advancing. Because that was my experience as a beginner. Now I think of generations of knowledge, each a circle in a venn diagram, messily overlapping one another. Not an astonishing insight, but it helps me prepare for mentoring some of my younger colleagues.