The outer limits of programming

ABSTRACT

We tend to believe that any programming task, no matter how large or complex, can be completed if we have enough time and resources. There is a growing body of evidence that this belief is mistaken, and some tasks may be beyond our capabilities. We may already be approaching our limits to manage complexity.

REFERENCES

• 1: Cf. F. P. Brooks Jr., "No Silver Bullet," first published in Information Processing '86, ISBN # 0-444-70044-3
• 2: Michael A. Cusumano , Richard W. Selby, How Microsoft builds software, Communications of the ACM, v.40 n.6, p.53-61, June 1997 [doi>10.1145/255656.255698]
• 3: David Gellernter, op.cit
• 4: David Gellernter, "Truth Beauty and the Virtual Machine," Discover, September 1997, pp. 72ff
• 5: W. Wayt Gibbs, "Software's Chronic Crisis," Scientific American, September 1994, pp. 86, 87, 89
• 6: Robert L. Glass, Revisiting the industry/academe communication chasm, Communications of the ACM, v.40 n.6, p.11-13, June 1997 [doi>10.1145/255656.255663]
• 7: Cf. Henry Lieberman, "The Debugging Scandal and What To Do about It," Communications of the ACM, April 1997 p. 27ff
• 8: David Parnas of Queens University in Kingston Ontario quoted in Science News vol. 139, February 1997, p. 104
• 9: As quoted by I. Peterson in Science News, vol. 139, February 1997, p. 104
• 10: Evan I. Schwartz, Discover Magazine, May 1996, p. 80