[78] in 6.033 discussion
Modern examples of Software Complexity and Management problems
amdehon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (amdehon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Apr 29 12:38:48 1994
The latest RISKS [Risks 15.80, athena discuss transaction 1019]
contains a posting describing the OS/software situation at SGI. It is
stark, eye-opening, and very representative of what actually happens
(I've had several people say, gee just change the name to XXX and that
describes...). I strongly reccommend everyone read it.
[While I'm glad I got an opportunity to read it, I'm afraid some people
in SGI will probably get in quite a bit of trouble over the fact that this
kind of a critical assessment got outside of SGI. Management which already
has unrealistic views of software is not likely to simply let their image
be tarnished like this without finding some scape-goats -- probably the
people who are pointing out the Emperor's lack of clothing. At this point,
this particular memo has probably gotten wide enough distribution that
the damage is done. Someone earlier in the distribution chain probably
should have exercised a bit more discretion.]
