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What factors explain the nature of software?

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Re: What factors explain the nature of software?

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but, on the other hand, being client focused and continuously delivering client facing feature, might be the thing that keeps the revenu streams coming I firmly reject this. If you can't build quality then you don't deserve to be in business I'm so sick of the fact that everyone is ok accepting "just barely passable" It has lead to everything new being built is crap. New housing is crap, new furniture is crap, new…

I have learned over the years that there are different types of devs. Some are ok with cranking out features without regard for overall architecture and can handle the chaos of constant quick fixes over previous quick fixes. There are others (like me) who like well designed systems and get stressed when they are asked to just crank out features without regard for the overall system. Personally I believe that my appro…

long term, companies that operate like this are better off paying for third party services that handle the more technical details that they aren't interested in managing. these are the target customers for managed infra services like heroku, fly, and such (or more task-specific services like pack digital). imo if you get into heavy technical requirements territory, the leadership has to re-assess their priorities or risk drowning the org in tech debt.

Re: What factors explain the nature of software?

#92
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tools such as TLA+ that help with modeling at the level higher than executable code. Recent talk for example: Fifteen years of formal methods at AWS Marc Brooker, Amazon AWS https://youtu.be/HxP4wi4DhA0

These don't model key properties of software for systems engineering purposes. Software can be technically correct in a formal sense and also broken in all real implementations if it doesn't satisfy reasonable engineering constraints, like efficiency, scalability, concurrency, latency variance, or strange resonances in the system (a significant performance issue in HPC). It is an optimization problem, not a correctne…

Software is too complex to rely on predictions along. Predicting is useful but eventually you must measure.

For example: "In conclusion, the issue isn't software-related. Python outperforms C/Rust due to an AMD CPU bug." https://xuanwo.io/2023/04-rust-std-fs-slower-than-python/#co...

Predict that.

Re: What factors explain the nature of software?

#93
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These don't model key properties of software for systems engineering purposes. Software can be technically correct in a formal sense and also broken in all real implementations if it doesn't satisfy reasonable engineering constraints, like efficiency, scalability, concurrency, latency variance, or strange resonances in the system (a significant performance issue in HPC). It is an optimization problem, not a correctne…

Software is too complex to rely on predictions along. Predicting is useful but eventually you must measure. For example: "In conclusion, the issue isn't software-related. Python outperforms C/Rust due to an AMD CPU bug." https://xuanwo.io/2023/04-rust-std-fs-slower-than-python/#co... Predict that.

Predictions are always going to be limited by the world model they assume. Still useful in 99% of the cases.

Re: What factors explain the nature of software?

#94
post #93
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is too complex to rely on predictions along. Predicting is useful but eventually you must measure. For example: "In conclusion, the issue isn't software-related. Python outperforms C/Rust due to an AMD CPU bug." https://xuanwo.io/2023/04-rust-std-fs-slower-than-python/#co... Predict that.

Predictions are always going to be limited by the world model they assume. Still useful in 99% of the cases.

99% is hopelessly naive. If it were true, we would live in "generate code from UML" world (it is useful only for niche tasks)
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