Tuesday March 28, 2006

Interesting takes on Windows Vista

There's a great article in the New York Times of 27 March 2006 about the delay in shipping Windows Vista, filled with inside information. The authors lay the blame largely on Microsoft's efforts to provide backwards compatibility, but also touch on its sheer complexity. I was led to the article by an opposing view published by Eric Raymond on his blog. Eric takes the view that closed source is to blame.

I've long been fascinated by the problems inherent in developing very large, complex projects, whether software, aircraft or skyscrapers. From my time in the software industry, I've come to believe, though I can't prove it, that the success or failure of large, complex projects is dependent on the number of interdependencies between the components, and that reducing the number of these interdependencies through architectural discipline can greatly improve the chances of success. This is certainly not a novel idea, but it is astonishing how seldom it is taken into account in designing a project. The reason for this may be that even the best modular architecture is worthless without management discipline to keep the builders from introducing unauthorized dependencies. One reason that airplanes and skyscrapers are more successful than large software projects is that the need to have an airframe structure or a building skeleton imposes a coherence on the design that is not present in software unless the architects and managers impose it themselves.