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Mitch Barnett - 6/1/2006

Hi Mark,

Just wanted to let you know that was a very good article you wrote. I like the paradigm and for sure, something has to give in our software industry.

Brad Cox, the inventor of Objective-C, had a similar view of reusable libraries and components that mirrored the hardware world. He even called them software IC's. That was 10 years ago and obviously from your article, you feel that we have not moved much further ahead. I tend to agree, but with articles like yours, and others, we seem to be moving towards a future that your article suggests.

Keep up the good writing!

Regards,

Mitch


Mark Bereit - 6/10/2006

Mitch,

Thank you for your comments! I had to look into Brad Cox, who I did not previously know about, and quickly got lost in looking through his thoughts, papers, and legacy. I will have to dig deeper! In particular I found it amusing that sixteen years ago he was taking exception to Fred Brooks' "No Silver Bullet" article, just like I have been. I also found it sad that those sixteen years have not resulted in more improvement.

I think process improvements are possible, and more people are thinking about them then I first feared. But mainstream development isn't seeing much of this yet; I have to hope that more discussion and consideration from those of us doing real-world development work will make some things happen.

Mark Bereit


Mitch Barnett - 6/13/2006

With respect to Brad Cox, I wrote an article about him at: http://softwareindustrialization.com/DisplayPost.aspx?PostID=77 that you may find interesting.