Re: tunnel vs open a hole

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () research att com>]

In message <3E961989.3010809 () wirex com>, Crispin Cowan writes:
> Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
>
> > This is an intellectually stimulating discussion for us, I'm sure, but basica
> lly
> > it's going to go around in circles for ever. Because software and the pressur
> es
> > on the software industry are complex and interdependent. You literally cannot
> > point at one spot and say "THERE'S THE PROBLEM!" - if it was that easy,
> > don't you think it would have been fixed a long time ago??  In fact, in order
> to
> > have significant improvement in software quality (and therefore security)
> I can point a finger :-) *The* problem is that "software engineering" is 
> not actually an engineering discipline, it is a black art. Software 
> development is not repeatable, not predictable, not manageable, and 
> depends critically on key individuals. This is an art form.

Anyone who hasn't yet read "The Mythical Man Month", by Fred Brooks, 
*run do not walk* to your nearest bookstore and get a copy.

Brooks wrote that book based on his experiences as the manager of, 
first, IBM's System/360 mainframes -- which was a management success, 
and whose architecture is still with us, for the most part -- and then 
of OS/360, which Brooks himself has described as a failure.  He wrote 
the book partly to answer the question of "why" -- why did he (and 
everyone else) find software project management very much harder than
any other sort.  (In my graduate school career, I had Brooks as a 
professor for four different courses.  He's been a tremendous influence 
on my career.  And I still find myself turning to Mythical Man Month 
for citations to all sorts of things, such as the bug rate in patches 
vs. original code.)


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
                http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)


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