Lesson plan
Programming complexity
Programming complexity (or software complexity) is a term that includes software properties that affect internal interactions. Several commentators distinguish between the terms "complex" and "complicated". Complicated implies being difficult to understand, but ultimately knowable. Complex, by contrast, describes the interactions between entities. As the number of entities increases, the number of interactions between them increases exponentially, making it impossible to know and understand them all. Similarly, higher levels of complexity in software increase the risk of unintentionally interfering with interactions, thus increasing the risk of introducing defects when changing the software. In more extreme cases, it can make modifying the software virtually impossible. The idea of linking software complexity to software maintainability has been explored extensively by Professor Manny Lehman, who developed his Laws of Software Evolution. He and his co-author Les Belady explored numerous software metrics that could be used to measure the state of software, eventually concluding that the only practical solution is to use deterministic complexity models.
Article summary
Programming complexity (or software complexity) is a term that includes software properties that affect internal interactions. Several commentators distinguish between the terms "complex" and "complicated". Complicated implies being difficult to understand, but ultimately knowable. Complex, by contrast, describes the interactions between entities. As the number of entities increases, the number of interactions between them increases exponentially, making it impossible to know and understand them all. Similarly, higher levels of complexity in software increase the risk of unintentionally interfering with interactions, thus increasing the risk of introducing defects when changing the software. In more extreme cases, it can make modifying the software virtually impossible. The idea of linking software complexity to software maintainability has been explored extensively by Professor Manny Lehman, who developed his Laws of Software Evolution. He and his co-author Les Belady explored numerous software metrics that could be used to measure the state of software, eventually concluding that the only practical solution is to use deterministic complexity models.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.