eh?

I admit, I’m a software engineer. At least, that’s one of the MANY titles I could/do take on in a small 3-4 person company. So when I ran across this article, I kinda liked what he said. But the most interesting point was made by the first commentator:

Are you familiar with the notion that software design and the software product generally may be “evil” problems? problems where the solution changes the nature of the original problem, which requires another solution, and so on? The analogy is to social enginnering and the failure of housing projects. This is not something that could be done away with by better planning.

There are other factors that make the problem “evil”: problems are always essentially unique; there is no defined stopping point for solutions; there are too many alternatives and alternatives which, at one point, were possibilities, once implemented are too costly and risky to reverse.

This may sound like a grab bag of gripes. I’ll have to get the references for this topic. There is a classic paper,
Rittel, H., and M. Webber, 1973 “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” pp 155-169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc. Amsterdam

This is so very interesting to me- on just about every level of my existence, actually. First off, concerning the software development I do, I wonder why I get frustrated sometimes. I’ve usually just chalked it up to “poor planning/foresight” (just rushing into the project without planning it out). But sometimes I wonder about that. Sometimes I just think that I’m trying to juggle 50 ‘rules’ in my head which can only handle 30.. I try to find ‘the perfect model’ which will allow a consistent use of languages & models, but there’s always the outliar– usually called ‘the next project’. So on & on the cycle goes..
As to another application, while studying philosophy here in seminary, I’m curious about Plato & Natural Theology. Philosophy has always been ’searching’ for a conception of God that is ‘pure-God’, consistent, full, beyond disbelief. But it’s a search without an end. Who’s to say your conception of God “is”? You conception of God will never be The Concept of God, it will always only be Your Conception of God, in-so-far as it’s based only in your head & not in external info (like God’s own self-revelation).
And once again, we can apply this idea of the ‘evil’ problem perhaps to science in the same way as philosophy’s God– The Enlightened search for Truth was held up in Science. Science is progressively getting “closer” to Truth. At least, they thought so 100 years ago. I believe science is useful & good, but only as long as it understands that there’s more to Reality and Truth than it can uncover. But in the end, any solution which science presents, only creates other problems.. So comes the infamous line, “For every question answered, we find 10 new questions unanswered..”