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Software Ecologies

Thu Sep 18 01:11:19 PDT 2008

Something has changed in software. The Platonist and formalists are retreating (or retiring) and the ardent model-based reasoning people are singing another tune. In olden times, software was a stand alone jewel and software engineers were jewelers who created perfect and precise diamonds. Now, software runs in environments that are so dynamic that yesterday's assumptions become invalid today. Worse, software is constructed from parts written and running elsewhere and those parts change so fast that any current precise definition will soon become irrelevant.

Its like last century's software was an oyster, alone in their little part of the beach, in full control of inputs and outputs. But today's software lives in some kind of jungle and must connect to a diverse ecology of other systems that slither and change all around. Before, the designer owned their world while now the designer must continually react and adapt to the changing environment around them.