Arbesman: Iterative hacks on large systems accumulate into impenetrable complexity
Sam Arbesman · a16z Podcast | It's Complicated · Jan 2, 2019 · at 4:29
Sam Arbesman, author and complexity scientist, discusses software system maintenance and design challenges on the a16z Podcast.
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“When you have, when you're confronted with a large system, some large technological system, like a piece of software or whatever oftentimes the only way to change it is through those kind of kludges or hacks, because it's this kind of iterative tinkering at the edges approach, which ends up meaning that you add something to it, it's not pretty, it gets the job done. The downside of that, of course, is you don't fully understand what's going on, and as more and more of these accrete, then suddenly you're left with this, like, impenetrable mess.”
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