[LINK] The Abandonment of Quality in IT

[Roger Clarke]

[ I've long planned to write an article on the collapse in quality of
information systems over the last 30 years.

[ One of the reasons I've yet to develop it is that I've been out of
software development per se for too long, and hence assembling the
evidence is harder because I lack both the entree and many of the
necessary insights into the slapdash ad-hocracy of recent years.

[ The following item has emerged in a court-case.

[ Some people are sceptical, on the grounds that 'We don't know.  It's
all too hard' is a rational position for a defendant to adopt if they
want to avoid exposing a system's design and features.  But for me it
rings oh-so-true.


Facebook Has No Idea What Data It Has
8 Sep 2022
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/09/facebook-has-no-idea-what-data-it-has.html

>From a court deposition:
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/facebook-personal-data-no-accountability/
> ... he questioned the engineers over whether any documentation existed
for a particular Facebook subsystem. “Someone must have a diagram that
says this is where this data is stored,” he said, according to the
transcript. Zarashaw [a software engineering manager] responded: “We
have a somewhat strange engineering culture compared to most where we
don’t generate a lot of artifacts during the engineering process.
Effectively the code is its own design document often.” ...


One of the comments on Bruce's posting:
> ... this attitude is by no means limited to Fessbuck… I would say that
it is typical of computing in general.


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University