Raging incrementalism: harnessing change with open-source software

ABSTRACT

Change is a bitter fact of life for system developers and, to a large extent, conventional practices are aimed at arresting change and minimizing its effects. We take the opposite view and are exploring system engineering practices that harness the forces of change for the ongoing, incremental improvement of systems---a view we name raging incrementalism. We harness three powerful forces to ride the waves of change: open-source software, commodity hardware, and web-like, representational state transfer architectures. This paper describes an early experiment in applying raging incrementalism to a complex system: large-scale digital video capture, distribution, and archival for launch range operations. We outline the methodology of raging incrementalism, describe the vital role open-source plays in system development and construction, and offer insights on the programmatic consequences of embracing open-source software.

REFERENCES

• 1: 1394 Trade Association, Santa Clara, California. IIDC 1394-based Digital Camera Specification, version 1.30 edition, July 2000.
• 2: A. J. Albrecht. Measuring application development productivity. In IBM Applications Development Symposium, pages 83--92, Monterey, CA, 1979.
• 3: Barry W. Boehm, A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement, Computer, v.21 n.5, p.61-72, May 1988 [doi>10.1109/2.59]
• 4: Roy T. Fielding , Richard N. Taylor, Principled design of the modern Web architecture, ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), v.2 n.2, p.115-150, May 2002 [doi>10.1145/514183.514185]
• 5: M. M. Gorlick. Raging incrementalism---system engineering for continuous change. In Proceedings of the 2004 Ground System Architecture Workshop, Manhattan Beach, CA, March 2004.
• 6: R. Kurzweil. The law of accelerating returns. March 2001. www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html.
• 7: Mary Shaw , Paul C. Clements, A Field Guide to Boxology: Preliminary Classification of Architectural Styles for Software Systems, Proceedings of the 21st International Computer Software and Applications Conference, p.6-13, August 11-15, 1997

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Life cycle

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Management

Keywords:
open source, raging incrementalism, representational state transfer