detailed description of his alleged per- ed by cost, they are not constrained by
petrator to a police artist who appears time, and they seem to rob otherwise
to be diligently sketching a corre- intelligent people of their common
sponding likeness on an unseen tablet sense. Their usage is typically accom-
of paper. After some time, the police panied by postponing engineering ef-
artist believes that the likeness he has forts to a time later in the product life
captured is sufficiently ready for the cycle, shirkingresponsibilitiestoother
victim to assess its accuracy. Amidst organizations, and blatant disregard
a rising crescendo of expectation, the for reality. And probably the most con-
artist reveals his drawing to the vic- sistent property associated with silver
tim. Shockingly, the drawing contains bullets is that the people who promote
only a human stick figure that would or endorse them have generally never
be considered primitive by even kin- been software developers nor have they
dergarten standards. All of the criti- directly contributed to the delivery of a
cal detail is missing from the sketch successful program. With Fred Brooks’
upon which to base future work, just well-known admonitions aside, it is
like when CreateWorldPeace or startling that the failure of past silver
Increase TheSpeedOfLight use bullets is insufficient to make people
cases are delivered to software engineer- very wary of them today.
ingorganizationsforimplementation. Barring future events similar to
Abstraction has a whole new meaning the Hunt brothers’ failed attempt to
amidst the whiz ofsilver bullets! corner the silver market in 1980, sil-
Silver bullets of the past and present ver futures appear to be bullish. The
share a number of common properties supply of fine-grade silver required to
that will also likely apply to the bullets manufacture the next generation of sil-
only now forming in the mental found- ver bullets is projected to meet future
JEri TeCs_ohfalthf_epfaagneta _s 4yC:mLainydoeudt. 1The6y/d2e6f/y08 de3m:4a4ndPMso thPaegseou1nd of their whiz will
the laws of physics, they are not bound- not subside anytime soon. As a result,
software organizations must accept
that silver bullets will be a part of their
future and should prepare strategies to
defend against them rather than to assume their demise. The only plausible
defense strategy against silver bullets
that I have been able to think of is to
assemble an engineering staff that
has a natural affinity for eluding these
projectiles and one with an innate terror of them. Assembling such a staff,
however, would involve an undertaking that is currently quite unpopular:
outsourcing. As opposed to China or
India, however, my outsourcing plan
would focus on a small town in Romania. For it is only in Transylvania where
one can assemble a team of those certain someones having an innate fear of
silver bullets…werewolves.
Alex E. Bell ( alex.e.bell@boeing.com) is a software
architect with The Boeing Company and author of “Death
by UML Fever.”
A previous version of this material appeared in the June
2006 issue of ACM Queue.
© 2008 ACM 0001-0782/08/0800 $5.00
ACM Journal on
Emerging Technologies
in Computing Systems
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testing, and evaluation of computing systems constructed out of
emerging technologies and advanced semiconductors. Topics include,
but are not limited to: Logic Primitive Design and Synthesis; System-Level Specification, Design and Synthesis; Software-Level Specification,
Design and Synthesis; and Mixed-Technology Systems.
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