Programming the Universe: The First Commandment of Software Engineering for all Varieties of Information Systems
This addresses software engineering challenges for all companies and systems, but appears incremental as it builds on existing guidelines.
The paper tackles the persistent problems and failures in software development by proposing a set of universal laws, leading to the first commandment of software engineering for all information systems, though no concrete results or numbers are provided.
Since the early days of computers and programs, the process and outcomes of software development has been a minefield plagued with problems and failures, as much as the complexity and complication of software and its development has increased by a thousandfold in half a century. Over the years, a number of theories, laws, best practices, manifestos and methodologies have emerged, with varied degrees of (un)success. Our experience as software engineers of complex and large-scale systems shows that those guidelines are bound to previously defined and often narrow scopes. Enough is enough. Nowadays, nearly every company is in the software and services business and everything is - or is managed by - software. It is about time, then, that the laws that govern our universe ought to be redefined. In this context, we discuss and present a set of universal laws that leads us to propose the first commandment of software engineering for all varieties of information systems.